


if you ignore all the hints, the deduction is sound

by indexthisqualisign



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Not Canon-Compliant for season 3 and 4
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-06-09 01:11:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6882994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indexthisqualisign/pseuds/indexthisqualisign
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marcus keeps finding himself getting lunch and coffee and dinner and pastries with Sherlock Holmes--a pattern increasingly difficult to ignore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Late Lunch

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by Marcus and Sherlock getting coffee, then brunch together. I got this idea: “what if Sherlock keeps inviting Marcus to coffee shops and restaurants to talk about cases until suddenly there are no cases and just coffee dates”… and then it grew into this monster of a fic. The idea was developed before the Season 3 finale and Season 4 (yes, I am a terribly slow writer…) I am trying to incorporate as many elements of Season3/4 as can make sense in the fic, but not everything is there to.be.sure. So you can consider it an AU, in a certain way! Also, please forgive this poor person who has only visited NYC once in her life literally ten years ago for trying to come up with believable descriptions of the city. 
> 
> Non-Beta-ed. Sorry for typos/grammatical mistakes.

In retrospective, Marcus knows he should have suspected something. He cannot be blamed for assuming the text he received from Sherlock, the now-usual combo of an address and a variation of "urgent", would lead him to a fresh crime scene. That is why as soon as he read the text he shot up from his desk, made sure his gun was strapped in before he told Captain Gregson about going first and letting him know he would to call him as soon as he had more details.

 

He is not even taken aback when the address turns out to be a classy, uptown café. He has learned quickly on the force that money is one of the most common motive for murder, and the one thing rich folks do not lack is money—basic human decency, now that was another story.

 

Marcus is a little surprised, however, to find the scene inside the café to be unsettlingly normal. There are not that many customers inside, caught in the lull between lunch and mid-afternoon coffee dates, but clients are eating and chatting amiably while the staff are going about their usual business.

 

He spots Sherlock sitting at a two-person table by a wall, sipping what Marcus assumes to be tea, a half-eaten sandwich in front of him and an enormous bowl of salad on the other side of the table. The window, on the side of the building only brings a diffuse light which casts Sherlock’s features in a more serene fashion than the harsh lights at the station. He looks like a civilian, in a way he rarely does anymore in Marcus’ mind.

 

Marcus walks toward the table and sits down.

 

"What is going on?" He doesn’t try to hide the impatient note in his voice.

  
"Ah, Detective, thank you for coming. Please have a seat," Sherlock says, all measured British manners, and it takes every ounce of Marcus' self-control not to roll his eyes at the other man and point out he is already sitting down.

  
"Care to explain what about this says 'urgent'? You couldn't wait to make me try this new salad that's the talk of the town?"

 

"Nonsense. The Yelp reviewers clearly overstated the culinary accomplishments of this establishment––and let's not get started on their abysmal tea selection.” He pauses and registers Marcus’ raised eyebrow. “I simply deduced that you had probably not taken the time to eat something yet, so wrapped in your current case as you are. I took the liberty of ordering you a meal."

 

" _Really_."

 

"Of course. Knowing your _penchant_ for what is dubbed 'healthy food'––quite nonsense if you ask me as all food provide nutriments to the body––and the fact you do not eat red meat, I figured a roasted chicken breast salad would do well. I was told the sweetness of the mango oversets the residual acidity of the aged balsamic vinegar."

 

He has to close his eyes and count to three before he opens his mouth. "No, I meant, did you _really_ call me out there in the middle of my work—my _very_ important work—to make sure I was eating my greens and not skipping my meals? Because, as far as I can see, no dead people here."

 

"I have too much respect for your work to do such a thing,” Sherlock says earnestly like this is something actual human beings say to one another. “And while there are no crime scenes to look at, I called you here regarding a case. I simply thought that we could, as the barbaric adage says, 'kill two birds with one stone'." Sherlock finishes with a tone of voice which implies that, obviously, Marcus should have been able to deduce the reason of their meeting.

 

"And which case would that be? I didn't know you and Joan were working for one of our cases right now. Last time I talked with Joan she told me you had taken a case from some guy who needed you to prove his ex-wife fabricated proof of his affair or something of the sort."

 

Sherlock pushes with his fork his half-eaten sandwich even further on the plate with a small huff of derision. Marcus finds his eyes following the movement.

 

"We closed the case this morning. Turns out our client had a long-lost twin brother. His ex-wife discovered his existence and decided to make use of it to access her husband's fortune."

 

Of course it was the long-lost twin. Marcus feels incredibly self-aware of how he has turned into the side character of a very elaborate soap opera. To think he used to believe it was out of the ordinary to have an old friend try to frame and kill him. Now he’s just waiting for someone in the department to get amnesia from a blow to the head or some other non-sense. Perhaps he should take again to watching telenovelas to prepare for any eventualities—his Spanish could use the practice.

 

"Joan is wrapping up with the client as we speak. No, I called you here regarding one of the case you are currently working on."

  
His eyebrows shoot up to his hairline and he reclines in his chair with his best unimpressed face.

 

"You mean a case for which you were _not_ asked to work as a consultant. A case that I have _not_ discussed with you.”

 

"Yes, the one."

 

For someone so sharp, Sherlock seems at times incredibly immune to sarcasm, Marcus thinks. Perhaps the truth is that Sherlock simply chooses to disregard the inconvenient feelings of irritation he is so prone to create with his antics, thinking that he can get away with it if he pretends he is incapable of picking up that particular brand of inflexion in their tone.

 

Marcus sighs and, deciding that he is too hungry to actually fight with Sherlock on this, picks up the fork.

 

"Care to explain how you know about my case?" He says, after eating his first bite.

 

"Two days ago, when I visited the precinct, I read through the files and––"

 

"Wait. You read through the files? Who gave you the permission to––"

 

"If you do not want people reading your files you should not leave them around on your desk while you are discussing with the Captain."

 

He raises his fork and points it at Sherlock, accusingly. "You are going to make _me_ responsible for _you_ snooping around confidential files?"

 

"I am merely suggesting that if you are so protective of them you should take further measures to keep them protected from people idling around the station. In a way, I was doing you a service."

 

Marcus prefers not to address Holmes' last comment. "And where was Joan while you were going through these confidential files you had no reason to be looking at?"

 

"If I remember correctly she left to get coffee. I was, according to her, being insufferable about our case," he notes, matter-of-factly. "She mentioned something about me needing to see a dead person to think a case interesting, but can I be blamed for not being overly excited over a scandal and an affair?"

 

"Yes, I get it, you like putting bad guys away and you don't care for people's personal lives." The salad is indeed incredibly good and he is almost willing to humour Holmes. "But can we get back to the reason why I was called here?"

 

“To discuss the case, as I already stated.”

 

“And you couldn’t have told me over the phone? Couldn’t have told me about it the next time you’d drop by the station?”

 

“Again, I was trying to be efficient.”

 

“Nothing about this is efficient,” he enunciates with meaning, waving at the room with his fork.

 

As Sherlock appears to muse his words, he rearranges the salt shaker, and realigns his butter knife. Then, he says, “Well, if you disregard that I brought you directly to the key witness of your case, perhaps then I suppose it could seem that way.”

 

“What witness?” This manages to spark Marcus’ interest enough for him to forget his irritation. “There were no witnesses for the case. The guy was killed in a dark alley in the wee hours of the morning. Not the busiest hotspot in the city.”

 

“Obviously. But I decided to go have a look at the scene this morning—or night, but semantics—and on my way noticed a woman that was purposely avoiding to walk through it. After discussing with her, I found out that she was scared to use her normal route as she had previously witnessed a murder happening there.”

 

“And let me guess, she works here.”

 

“Brightly deduced, Detective Bell. Yes, she is the _boulangère_ of this establishment. While she related to me her recollections of the crime, I figured an official deposition would work much better when you will lay charges against Esteban Luiz Martinez.”

 

“What was that?”

 

“Esteban Luiz Martinez,” Sherlock repeats slowly. “The perpetrator of the crime. While everything links him to the crime, I figured it would be better to have the witness account to support the accusations.”

 

“And I’m sure you want me to ask you how you know that?”

 

“I am certain it will all become clear to you after hearing Eugénie’s account of the events.” Sherlock replies, before getting up in a jerky movement. “I need to leave you now, but enjoy your food and your interrogation. Do not worry about the bill, it has already been taken care of. Please pass Captain Gregson my salutations.”

 

Just like that, Sherlock is out of the door in a furry of crisped limbs and restless hands. Marcus looks at the half-eaten salad in front of him, sighs, and allows himself to finish it before looking for this Eugénie—perhaps he should be brushing up on his abysmal French instead of his Spanish.

 

As he drives home that night, after poaching Esteban and his likely accomplice, knowing he’ll have a bunch of reports to fill out tomorrow morning, a thought slips into his head as he tries to remember whether or not he has something to cook with at home or if he should get some take-out: Sherlock invited him for lunch. Marcus starts chuckling because of all the ways his life has turned out to be weirder than he could have ever imagined since meeting him and Joan, this figures at the top of his list.


	2. The Evening Coffee Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The FBI gets involved, Joan gets a date and Marcus gets a free cappucino.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might lose access to my computer tomorrow since it's starting to literally fall apart , so I figured I should just post the next chapter tonight even if I didn't have a chance to proof-read it carefully. Again, non-beta-ed.

At nine at night, New York traffic is still terrible but not as much as it can otherwise be. Marcus almost wishes he had made the trip in the subway to save himself from having to find a parking space, but he is coming from the station. Late nights are becoming usual since the beginning of a serial killer rampage in the streets of New York earlier that week—particularly since the FBI has decided to get involved and claim jurisdiction. He had almost told off Sherlock when he had received the call as he was leaving the station to go home, but he figured he should give him the benefit of the doubt: Sherlock had mentioned the need to discuss something that could not be relayed over the phone.

 

“Remind me again why I need to meet you in a coffee shop close to the Brownstone?” Marcus asks as he swerves into the left lane to avoid a taxi who came to an abrupt stop.

 

“Because Watson has company over at the Brownstone.” Sherlock’s voice comes out of the speakers of his car. Marcus can hear that he is already outside—probably walking—from the background noise of the call.

 

“Company?”

 

“Yes. As I said.”

 

“Yeah, you said. But perhaps you want to expand on that, you know, since it has never really stopped you from having me over before—especially since Joan is better company than you.”

 

“She’s having s _pecial_ company.”

 

Marcus rolls his eyes before making sure he’s watching the car in front of him—he knows from experience he should not underestimate New York traffic. “See, that tells me absolutely nothing. In fact, it tells me as much as your cryptic call and request to meet. ”

 

“I assure you everything will soon become very clear. I will see you at the café.”

 

The call disconnects. Marcus is annoyed but not surprised—he feels that he has managed to get to know Sherlock well enough to no longer be shocked by the way he conveniently disregards good manners whenever it suits him.

 

The night is already dark, early autumn reminding them that days will only keep getting shorter and shorter even if most trees lining the streets still remain almost unchanged. Marcus circles around the block only once to find a decent parking spot, which he takes as a victory. After paying for an hour of parking, he jogs to the coffee store, a small place he’s been with Joan at least once before—it’s independently-owned, and they care about their coffee without being obnoxious about it. From the outside, he can already see Sherlock sitting at a table.

 

Marcus shrugs off the hood of the sweatshirt he put on top of his work clothes as he enters the café, warm air and coffee smells suddenly surrounding him. He sits down opposite to Sherlock and decides to let him have the honors of debuting the conversation.

 

“I took the liberty of ordering you a cappuccino,” Sherlock says after a beat as he pushes a cup towards him. In front of Sherlock is a French press and a small porcelain milk jug. The bridge above his left eye is still purple and mangled, from when a perp last week didn’t take too kindly to his smart mouth and hit him with a right hook before he or Joan could react.

 

“Should I be worried that you are trying to keep me awake all night?” he replies, half-sarcastic, half-serious. “Seriously though, will I have to stay up all night?” he adds when Sherlock stays silent a second too long for it not to mean that exact thing.

 

“It is about the serial killer case.”

 

Of course it is about the serial killer case. When has Sherlock ever respected things like jurisdictions when crimes are happening and criminals are to be apprehended?

 

“Holmes,” he interjects. “The NYPD no longer technically works the case. The FBI took over and made it _very_ clear they didn’t want you two to be involved.” Marcus is not stupid enough to believe Joan is not involved in this little clandestine investigation even though she did not show up for the meet-up.

 

Sherlock gives him a petulant look while his fingers are playing with milk jug in front of him. “We wouldn’t have to do this if the FBI knew how to conduct an investigation.”

 

“And perhaps they’d have let you consult on the case if you had not insulted the lead investigator by telling him something along the same lines!”

 

Judging from the looks of the woman sitting in an armchair next to them, Marcus probably raised his voice to much—but can he be blamed? Captain Gregson and he were the ones who had to smooth ruffled feathers after Sherlock and Joan left in a tornado of indignation and bruised egos.

 

“Agent Fuller is a buffoon of the highest order and his continued employment a threat to the security of this nation.” Sherlock scoffs and gesticulates in the way he is prone to do. “And as a new murder happened this morning we cannot leave in good conscience the livelihood of New York City women into their hands.”

 

Marcus likes to reproach Sherlock many things, but he cannot fault him for wanting to stop criminals from harming people. To be completely honest, when it doesn’t end up with him having to deal with the consequences (ranging from annoying to gunshot in his stomach), Marcus almost admires the reckless determination to help others that makes Sherlock—and increasingly often, Joan—disregard rules and authorities. A strong sense of justice sometimes seems to be the only thing he has in common with the man—and that only serves to remind him how much he himself also puts into his work as a detective. How, when he was robbed from the opportunity to do the job, he felt lost and purposeless. 

 

Marcus sighs, knowing he has been won over without even needing an argument. He takes his cup between his hands and says, “So, the case.”

 

This is enough to get a knowing grin from Sherlock.  

 

“Right. I am sure you remember the details of the case even if the NYPD is only offering support for the FBI investigation.”

 

Of course he remembers. “Four murders in seven days: young women shot in public in crowded places. All four women killed in a similar manner, but in different parts of town. Nothing seems to link them together. The ages of the victims range between 18 and 33. All shot in the back. No bystanders so far have been able to identify the shooter since he uses the crowds to hide in plain sight. Video surveillance cameras haven’t given us a clear shot of his face—he is always wearing a hoodie, or a cap. We know he’s a white male, average built, average height. NYPD dispatches have been increased and every officer is on alert, but what with the randomness of the attacks, we’re still not getting any closer to catching a suspect. ”

 

“And what has the FBI been saying about it since Joan and I were _removed_ from the investigation?”

 

“It’s not like they share much with us.”

 

Sherlock raises an eyebrow at him, so he adds what he really meant to say. “But I heard their profiler has been saying it’s the work of a serial killer targeting random individuals—someone who finds fulfillment from the anonymity provided by crowds.” At this, Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I am sure you are going to tell me he has it all wrong.”

 

“Obviously. Pigs would start flying _en masse_ over New York before an FBI profiler got anything right regarding an investigation.” Sherlock says and then pauses.

 

A beat passes.

 

“Are you really going to force me to ask you what you found out?” Marcus says.

 

 “The victims are not random.”

  
This makes Marcus pauses. “They haven’t been able to find any connexion between them.”

 

“The connexion is not between the victims, but between the killers.”

 

“Now—wait. You’re trying to tell me that there is more than just one killer? That’s not coherent with the evidence. Notwithstanding the fact video cameras give the same perpetrator each time, ballistics confirmed all the bullets came from the same gun.”

 

Sherlock leans forward on his chair and explains with a trace of self-satisfaction. “Video footage shows no clear shot of his face. All they—all we know for sure is that all perpetrators were white and of average built and height. Requirements flexible enough to supply a large pool of potential killers in New York City alone. And the victims were indeed killed by the same gun, which was exchanged between the perpetrators in order to create this fiction of a serial killer the FBI is buying into.”

 

Marcus leans back into his chair, and arches an eyebrow. He is starting to see where Sherlock is going with his explanation, but he won’t give in before he gets the full story—he knows Sherlock well enough by now to be certain he’s withholding crucial information to keep his grand reveal.

 

“Mind I remind you three days ago you were making theories about a serial killer too?”

 

“It became clear with the new murder and the new evidence Watson and I found that this is not the work of a single person.”

 

“Okay,” He says. “Okay. Let’s go with that. But why would they exchange the gun? Why go through the trouble of making sure this serial killer narrative holds up?”

 

“For a very simple reason: if someone is killed and the police is certain it is the work of a serial killer, they won’t look into other suspects and motives.”

 

He feels the vibrations coming from Sherlock’s restless legs, and under the small table, at random moments it knocks against his knee.

 

“And what is so different about the new murder?”

 

“All murders happened in crowded places, that is true, but they also all happened close to or inside a subway station. They happened during the morning rush hour. Yet, this last murder was slightly different. It didn’t happen as close to a subway station, and the time didn’t feel quite right. The time lapse between this murder and the last was also shorter—”

 

“Could just be a classic case of escalation.”

 

“You are quite right, detective. But the important point was the location; I realized from looking at the FBI files—”

 

“I will pretend I didn’t hear that.”

 

“—that the murder took place only a street corner away from the victim’s residence. Since it happened in a somewhat busy street, it did not raise the suspicions of the FBI. But can we trust them to pay attention to anything of relevance? The pivotal element of the serial murder theory was the randomness of the victims—but for the pattern to change in this manner, it seemed to indicate the killer became reckless after his success and stopped planning as carefully to hide the fact he selected his victims—knew where they lived.”

 

“I don’t see how this translates into multiple killers.”

 

“Watson suggested we look back at the list of suspects that was drawn out for the first victim, before the second killing happened and any leads were dropped in favour of pursuing the serial killer theory. We found that the victim had filled a claim against a stalker, a certain James Hart. A white man who, according to his driver’s ID, is five foot ten and weighs 155 pounds. This led me to do some research about the other victims. For all of them we found either records of violent exes or stalkers, or we received confirmation from friends that they had had run-ins with overzealous admirers or attempted rapists. While this is not enough to connect these women together at first, knowing the depressingly regular occurrence of violence against women in America, in all these cases we were able to link the victims to a white man of regular height and build, and were able to ascertain they would have been likely singled out as suspects had anything happened to our victims under other circumstances.”

 

“I can see where you are going with this, but that’s not going to be enough for the FBI to take your theory seriously. At this point, you pretty much only managed to prove the victims had in the common the fact that they were women. It can just be brushed off as a coincidence—average height and average build is the literal description of _common_.”

 

“We anticipated this problem,” Sherlock says, matter-of-factly, as he pushes his cup on the table in a restless movement. “That’s why I set to enlist the help of the Anonymous Collective. After I performed a rap song about the founding fathers in full costume, we were able to ask them to look for any suspect activities. The man who got the stalking charges was apparently very active on the so-called ‘Men’s Right Activism Sub-Reddit’ and one particular message caught our attention. He said in a conversation something along the lines of, that with their smarts they could find a way to make these, quote-unquote, stuck-up bitches pay without having to face any consequences. The collective were able to trace private communications between a group of men who then devised the plan currently in motion. Some were smarter and used proxys to hide their IP address, but we are able to trace back our main suspect, motives, and the conspiracy.”

 

Marcus drinks the last gulp of his coffee, and takes a second to process all the information he was given. Mainly, his mind brings him back to the same thought. “You two seem to have this all figured out—why call me?”

 

“The FBI won’t hear us out after the events that unfolded earlier this week. Nor will they take our theory seriously—and I doubt they even possess the necessary imagination to understand the crime we have at hand. We need your help to convince them.”

 

Marcus sighs, and drags his hand on his face which he finds is almost numb from exhaustion at this point. “Fine, fine. I guess we can try to talk to an agent first—not the lead investigator,” he adds, giving a look he hopes conveys to Sherlock that it is _his_ fault that the FBI won’t be willing to work with them. He is surprised to notice a sliver of blame pass in his expression. Marcus has to hand it to Joan: Sherlock has managed to become much more self-aware of his failings. He should be surprised, perhaps. Marcus looks at his right hand, the phantom of the tremors a sort of forgotten memory that is still, at times, salient and haunting. In a way, perhaps he isn’t so surprised.   

 

“Watson is currently meeting with Agent Morstan to try to rally her support,” Sherlock says, dragging him out of thoughts. It takes a beat longer than normal for him to process what the other man just said.

 

“Then why couldn’t we discuss this with them, then?”

 

“Our presence would be a distraction.”

 

“A distraction,” he says, not a question.

 

“Yes, for Watson to use her powers of seduction to help sway Agent Morstan to our side.”

 

“What.” He blinks. “Are you telling me you dragged me here because you made Joan seduce an FBI agent into cooperating with you?”

 

“You are misunderstanding me. The mutual flirtation started before I found a use to it in the context of our investigation—Watson is unconsciously but willingly using her feminine wiles. I simply facilitated the process by removing myself.”

 

“You know she’s going to kill you when she learns about this.”

 

“Less likely considering the power of endorphins—sex is a known relaxant.”

 

“No,” Marcus throws his hands up. “It’s not happening—I’m not staying here listening to you discuss Joan’s sex life.”

 

“Would you rather we talk about yours?”

 

“I’d rather we talk about anything else but that.”

 

Sherlock looks at his phone, “Well, I’d say we should wait at least another half hour before meeting them back at the Brownstone. This leaves us plenty of time to touch a number of subjects which are neither yours nor Joan’s sex lives—or lack thereof.”

 

Marcus is a little bit surprised, and thinks he should be a little bit annoyed that, at this point, he won’t get home until an ungodly hour. But after the madness of the week, there is something almost more relaxing than sleeping in being in a warm-lighted coffee store in company of another person. Even if he has to ignore that last comment.

 

“Sure. As long as I can get another cup,” he says, getting up to go at the counter. “And as long you don’t start talking about _your_ sex life.”

 

The thirty minutes pass by faster than Marcus realizes it. What started first as a continued discussion of the case and of the best strategy to get all the conspirators of this little serial killer project behind bars turned into what Marcus would call a normal conversation with a friend if it weren’t Sherlock, and his almost-manic hand gestures, sitting in front of him on the other side of the table.  

 

Sherlock offers to train him again, as he did Joan—he refuses. Sherlock offers to share some of his stories from his time at Scotland Yard—which he encourages and finds himself laughing at Sherlock’s descriptions of the other detectives there. Marcus talks a little bit about how he helped his paramedic buddy prove his landlord was a drug dealer and how Andre got a new job; but Marcus does not share much about himself. He starts questioning why he doesn’t do it. He’s gotten close to Joan, and shared with her many minutia details of his life, safe perhaps for his feelings—he’s never been big on talking about his feelings. Yet, he doesn’t do this with Sherlock, even after all this time.  

 

When they leave the coffee store, the almost tranquil autumn night welcomes them. They go back to his car, and drive back to the Brownstone.

 

When, at a red light, Marcus contemplates the discussion that awaits them there, a question pops up.

 

“You do know Joan is straight, right?”

 

Sherlock raises an eyebrow at him. “I know she has identified as straight.” He pauses. “I also know she is attracted to Agent Morstan. The need to fix labels on people’s romantic and sexual experiences is a product of a society obsessed with its own paradigms. Should she deny herself simply because she has been presenting herself as attracted to men until now?”

 

“I’m just saying I’m not as certain as you are that Joan really intends to ‘seduce’ Agent Morstan.”

 

“Are you doubting my deduction skills? After all this time?”

 

“You know you’ve been wrong before, no?”  He can’t help making a jab at Sherlock. “Look, I’m not saying I doubt your deduction skills. Just that most people, you know, _normal_ people, they don’t act out on all the desires they might feel. Especially people who think of themselves as straight when they’re attracted to someone of the same gender.”

 

“Seems almost like you are talking from experience.”

 

Marcus keep his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheels because he’s not letting Sherlock deduce that one.

 

“Perhaps it is not the best thing for an addict like me to say,” Sherlock adds, “but I find it difficult to understand denying yourself from something that will bring you pleasure. Sex is part of our physical needs. ”

 

Marcus parks the car and turns off the ignition. “Well, it can also complicate things.”

 

Sherlock contemplates it, looks at Marcus for a second too long, and says, “I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”

 

Inside the Brownstone, they find Joan and Agent Morstan in the living room. Agent Morstan is sitting in the armchair. Even seated her figure appears long and graceful, but at the same time full of strength, like a dancer. The crisp white of her shirt contrasts with the dark of her skin and of her hair. She is distractingly beautiful, and Marcus has no difficulty believing anyone would be attracted to her.

 

Marcus is a good detective. He is perhaps not able to make the leaps and bounds Joan and Sherlock are prone to, but he notices things. He’s capable of putting small details together into a coherent conclusion. And what he can tell from the scene, from the awkward stances of Joan and Morstan—he knows right away.

 

Incredibly enough, Sherlock was right.

 

Actually, he’d bet all of his savings over the fact Joan and Agent Morstan had been kissing before they arrived. Their body language, their expressions—it’s all written there, plain as day.

 

When he turns to share a look with Sherlock, he finds the man with a cocky grin on his face, rolling on the balls of this feet with his hands in his pocket. He looks like the definition of a self-satisfied ass.

 

“Anyone told you that’s not a cute look on you?”

 

Agent Morstan gives him a puzzled expression while Sherlock’s grin only gets slier.

 

“Now! I am pretty sure you and Detective Bell are acquainted already, so let’s just skip over the introductions. I say we should be all up to date on the particulars of our case. Time to catch our murderers—oh, and welcome to the team, Agent Morstan.”

 

They do end up staying up all night, but it seems worth it when they arrest two of the suspects in the middle of a weapon drop-off around six in the morning before the gun can be used again. It’s even more satisfying when the rest of the men are picked up in one swift coordinator operation later that day—say what you want about the FBI, but they know how to do things with a flair of dramatics.

 

When he leaves the station to catch some well-deserved shut-eye in his bed, he sees a glimpse of Joan and Agent Morstan talking to one another in low tones. Joan catches his eye and he gives her a thumb ups. She rolls her eyes and makes a shooing gesture. 

 

It's a good thing he likes what he's seen of Agent Morstan so far, and that he's been impressed by her inquisitiveness and her emotional intelligence, because he has an inkling he's going to see a lot more of her around. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope my description of the crime made sense! 
> 
> Would love to hear your thoughts on the chapter.


	3. Chinese Food Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is one happy but long-suffering Joan, many plates of Chinese food, and two passive-aggressive idiots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did end up having quite bad computer problems since I posted the last chapter, but thankfully I was able to work some more on the fic since then. 
> 
> In this chapter there is some Chinese, but don't worry if you can't read it, within the context it should all makes sense. I was just thinking how much I've been wanting to have Joan speak Chinese on the show and I figured, why not write it? Also please forgive my very rudimentary Chinese--I couldn't come up with a good enough excuse to get someone to proof-read it for me, ha!
> 
> Again, this fic is non-beta-ed, so please forgive me for the typos/grammar mistakes.

Marcus is doing the reps prescribed by his physiotherapist absentmindedly while sitting on his couch in front of an episode of a comically dramatic telenovela when his phone rings. He fishes it out of his sweatpants pocket and sees Joan’s name on the caller ID. He searches for the remote control to put the TV on mute, and takes so long to figure out it fell under him that he almost doesn’t answer on time.

 

“Hey, Joan, how are you doing?” he says, a little too out of breath for someone who was just looking for a remote control.

 

“Hi Marcus!” From the background of the call, he can hear New York City streets in all their noisy glory. “I’m good. What about you?”

 

“Oh, you know, doing the traditional Sunday thing—sitting at home in my sweatpants, making big plans to perhaps do a load of laundry or wash the floor. Riveting stuff.”

 

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with having a normal, uneventful day. I can’t say this within earshot of Sherlock,” she says this part almost too pointedly, but he does really pay attention to it, “but it’s nice from time to time not to be dealing with gruesome death.”

 

“Don’t speak too fast—I might end up dying of boredom before the day is out.”

 

She laughs. “Well, I was calling to see if you wanted to eat a late lunch with me? I’m not too far from your place right now.”

 

“Joan Watson, saving the day yet again.” He pauses to hear her chuckle at his terrible pun. “Sounds great. Just give me a little time to make myself presentable.”

 

“Sure. I was thinking Chinese? There’s a place I love in the neighborhood—I’ll text you the address. How about we say we meet there in thirty minutes?”

 

“Works for me. I’ll see you in thirty minutes.”

 

He gets up from the sofa, and realizes he doesn’t remember where he put the remote just two seconds ago, and starts looking for it again—it fell into a crack in the couch.

 

On the screen, a woman is screaming at her boyfriend. “Sorry Angelica; I’ve found a better date than you for today,” he tells his empty apartment before going to his bedroom to change.

 

Now dressed in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, he takes time to shave the stubble he didn’t bother with this morning. He brushes his teeth and, feeling satisfied he is no longer ashamed to be seen in public, he puts on his coat to survive the November chill that settled over the city. He takes one quick look at the address Joan sent, and calculates that it should only be a ten-minute walk altogether from his apartment.

 

He spots Joan before he recognizes the name of the restaurant she had texted him since it is written unreadably small under large Chinese characters he does not know how to read. A second after, he notices the fidgety figure standing beside her. He jay-walks across the street to meet them.

 

“What is he doing here?” He asks Joan, shaking his thumb in the general direction of Sherlock.

 

“He insisted on coming,” she says as she kisses his cheek. “He was listening on our conversation on the phone.”

 

“I have heard many times from Joan that this establishment is quite remarkable—and that the cooks actually know how to spice a dish.”

 

Joan rolls her eyes, “Yes, that’s the only reason why you wanted to come.” Before he has time to reply to her comment, she adds, “we should go inside before my hands freeze off.”

 

The restaurant, specialising in Hunan cuisine according to both Joan and the storefront, is one of those places that are more invested in the taste of their food than in their interior decorating, which suits him just fine. So far he’s never been disappointed by one of Joan’s recommendations.

 

A middle-aged Chinese woman greets them at the front and seems to recognized Joan in an instant.

 

“譚姐！你好！” Joan says with a smile, and Marcus at least can understand this much Chinese.

 

“Joan! 好久不见！你好吗？” The owner gives Joan a warm smile, and they exchange what he guesses are pleasantries. The owner’s attention seems to be stolen by the person standing next to Joan, and she glances for a few seconds at Sherlock without uttering a word. She squints her eyes a little, in assessment.  She turns back to Joan and says, “这是Sherlock， 是不是？”

 

 “是啊。” Sherlock is the one to reply, which seems to surprise the owner. Marcus remembers the case, a long time ago, with that low-life perp who had dabbled in human trafficking, and how Sherlock had spoken Chinese—Mandarin, he corrects himself—with the poor girl they had found hidden in his apartment. Marcus stopped being surprised a long time ago of seeing Sherlock switch almost effortlessly into a second or third or eighth language. At least the fact that his pronunciation is not perfect makes Marcus feel a little less inadequate—even a genius like Sherlock cannot be perfectly proficient in a dozen languages just through force sheer of will and wit. 

 

“听懂了吗？”

 

“听懂啊。”

 

“好好。”

 

Marcus stands behind them as they keep talking between the three of them, not really understanding what is going on but figuring they are simply getting introduced. Joan said she loved this place, but she didn’t let on that she knew the owner personally: not understanding what they are saying doesn’t keep him from seeing that the owner looks at Joan with affection, like one would a family member or a close friend.

 

The owner’s attention suddenly turns to him, and she seems to look him up with intent. She raises an eyebrow at Joan. He has no idea what is going on.  “他是…你的男朋友…？”

 

“不是不是。 是我们的朋友Detective Marcus Bell。Marcus, this is Mrs. Tan, the owner of the restaurant.”

 

“Nice to meet you. I heard nice things about this place from Joan,” he says with a smile, trying not to sound too curious about what was clearly said about him a few seconds ago.  

 

“Thank you. A friend of Joan is also a friend to me,” she tells him, before she addresses the three of them. “Now, come come sit.”  

 

The restaurant is only half-full, which makes sense at this hour of the day. Mrs. Tan sits them at a nice four-person table by the window and gives them three menus.

 

“So how do you know the owner?” he asks Joan while Sherlock is looking intently at the menu. He puts his coat and glove on the empty seat next to him and takes Joan’s coat over the table to pile it also on the empty chair. Sherlock had simply put his on his chair without a thought.

 

“I’ve come here often over the years, but I guess we became closer when I helped out with a family problem last year,” Joan says as she removes her scarf and drapes it on her chair. Marcus notes the deliberate euphemism she used, decides not push further with this line of questioning.   

 

“Well, she seems to like you a lot.”

 

She laughs warmly at this, “And I like her a lot too. She is like an older sister to me now. Down to being over-invested in my love life.”

 

“If we’re on the subject of your love life…” he starts with a grin, thinking how easy Joan made it for him. “How is Agent Morstan?”

 

“You can call her Mary, you know?” Joan says, hiding a soft, pretty blush.

 

Marcus is almost jealous of her happiness. His last few attempts at dating turned out to range from underwhelming to complete disaster.

 

“Uh-uh. Well, how is _Mary_ then?”

 

“She was well the last time I saw her.”

 

“And when would that be?” he teases.

 

“Yesterday night—or rather, this morning, to be more exact,” answers Sherlock, eyes still locked on the menu.

 

“And how is _your_ love life, Marcus?” Joan says, intently, sending a chastising look at Sherlock, which he promptly ignores.

 

“Don’t try to turn this conversation on me!” Marcus laughs.

 

“I should just be fine with you two sitting here and discussing details of my personal life, then?” Joan says, and, turning to send another pointed look at Sherlock, adds, “especially considering one of the person involved doesn’t understand personal boundaries at all.”

 

“Watson, you should not speak in this manner about Detective Bell.”

 

“You know she was talking about you,” Marcus replies. Perhaps a little curtly.

 

Sherlock raises his eyebrow in acknowledgement but doesn’t say any thing more. Marcus turns his attention back on Joan.

 

“How do you feel about it, though, being in a relationship again?” Marcus tries not to bring up Andrew more than he feels necessary, but he knows his death, and the part she played in it, left a lasting wound in Joan. He knows, too, that it must be difficult for her to get entangled with someone else after her decision to commit to this life, perks and sacrifices included. 

 

Joan looks outside the window, clearly still emotionally vulnerable when it comes to this particular topic. “She’s FBI,” she says in a way that is self-explanatory. “I don’t think I could ever be with someone who does not know—I just can’t ask a civilian to shoulder these types of risks because of the life I chose.”  

 

Just then, Mrs. Tan comes back to the table to take their order personally, a clear gesture of her affection for Joan. This seems to help shake Joan from the darker turn the conversation took, and the loss of a man whose death she will never stop feeling responsible for.

 

Marcus tells Joan he gives her _carte blanche_ to order the dishes, and Sherlock obnoxiously adds a few additions of his own.

 

“很辣的。怎么辣的。” Sherlock adds emphatically after Mrs. Tan has noted down everything.

 

“好好。我明白了。” Mrs. Tan replies good-naturedly with a ybarel noticeable eye-roll.

 

Joan interjects in Chinese again, and then explains she made sure some of the dishes would not be too spicy for him since Sherlock seemed hell-bent on having the lot of them as spicy as could be.  .

 

“What is the point of having 湖南菜 if not to eat spicy?” Sherlock says, in a way he probably thinks is rhetorical, but ends up sounding like a thinly-veiled insult.

 

“Maybe some of us enjoy not feeling heartburns after a meal,” Marcus replies.

 

Okay. Perhaps Marcus is more short-tempered with Sherlock than usual. Perhaps Marcus is still a little bit mad at Sherlock. Perhaps Marcus is not over the stunt Sherlock pulled two days ago. Perhaps Sherlock knows it. Perhaps that is why Sherlock has been uncharacteristically silent. Perhaps that is why Sherlock is being passive-aggressive in response to the way Marcus is being curt and uncivil with him.

 

Marcus doesn’t care. He signed in for some Chinese food with Joan, and that is all he’s going to focus on right now. They fall back into a conversation while they wait for the dishes to arrive. They talk a little bit more about Mary, and then the frankly terrible play Joan went to see with her mother last week. Marcus discusses his latest case, and how the husband tried his best to fool them into thinking he had not been the one to kill his pregnant wife. Sherlock does not seem to pay much attention to this part of the conversation, and Marcus figures that a straightforward case like this one would hold no interest for the man. Just like that, they keep talking until the dishes start coming to the table.

 

Marcus starts coughing right after a waitress puts down a dish Sherlock selected in front of them.

 

“Oh my god, are you trying to kill us?” Marcus says pointedly at Sherlock.

 

“Unlike you Joan can handle spicy food.”

 

“Yeah, and Joan is here and can talk for herself,” she deadpans.

 

“Put that damn chemical bomb as far away as possible from me.”

 

“Calling 东安子鸡 a chemical bomb…” Sherlock says to himself, but loud enough for Marcus to hear him.

 

“There are enough dishes to please both those who eat spicy and those who don’t, so let’s just get to eating, okay?” Joan interrupts their jabbing and thanks the waitress for the three of them.

 

The rest of the lunch follows in the same mood—Marcus pettily ignores Sherlock; Sherlock does not contribute much to the conversation, safe for the occasional quips at Marcus; Joan tries to hide the long-suffering sighs that escape her mouth at their childish antics.

 

Joan insists on inviting him, arguing it was her idea and, adding with a meaningful look at Marcus, that she brought an unexpected guest with her. Just as she goes to pay, however, her phone vibrates on the table. The soft smile she gets after reading the text she receives is enough for Marcus to guess who it is from.

 

“I’ll be leaving first,” she announces.

 

“Do you intend to stay at Agent Morstan’s apartment tonight? There are some experiments with gunshot damage patterns I have been meaning to explore.”

 

“Even when I am not there we still have neighbours who can fill a noise complaint,” Joan replies, picking up her purse and coat from the seat next to Marcus. “It was nice to see you, Marcus. See you soon.”

 

“See you at the station,” he replies.

 

In under a minute, she pays for the meal, says her goodbyes to Mrs. Tan, and goes back into the November chill outside.

 

Sherlock is typing on his phone, and Marcus is starting to feel drowsy from eating so much, which makes the idea of settling down again on his couch to watch corny telenovelas more exciting than it had been earlier this afternoon.

  
“Okay, well, I’m gonna head home too,” he announces as he puts on his coat. Sherlock nods while typing on his phone, seemingly too absorbed for more of a reaction. If Marcus ever flirted with the idea that Sherlock would apologize for his behavior, the possibility is now completely gone, which only serves to make him more bitter.

 

“Right,” he mutters as he leaves. He thanks Mrs. Tan, who is currently talking with the waitress who brought them their dishes, and exits back into the street.

 

He’s pulling on his gloves as an afterthought when Sherlock suddenly emerges from the restaurant.

 

“Detective,” Sherlock interjects as he is starting to walk home.  

 

“Will you seriously keep calling me that on my day off?”

 

“Marcus,” he corrects, catching up to walk next to him. “It seems from your behaviour this week and today that you are angry at me.”

 

“You don’t say.”

 

A beat passes, and Marcus keeps walking because he won’t ask for an apology even when he knows he deserves one.

 

“I am guessing it is about the events that happened during our last case,” Sherlock says as he walks up to catch up with him.

 

“Great deduction skills—ever thought of becoming a detective?” Marcus reverts again to sarcasm and does not even feel bad about it for a split of a second.

 

“Charming,” Sherlock replies with a somehow audible eye-roll. “I do not understand your need to push me away because I have offended your sensibilities.”

 

“My sensibilities? Are you fucking kidding me?” He huffs in indignation. Even though he has calmed down after two days of not being around Sherlock after the case had been closed, he found that his anger was still there, enough to make him slip and swear aloud in public. “You disrespected me in front of a suspect, almost compromised our investigation by breaking into a house and told my colleagues I thought they were incompetent, all in a day’s work! You don’t see anything wrong with that? I’ll let you in on a little secret. That’s not because I’m too sensitive, it’s because you are too much of an asshole to realize when you are being one!”

 

He doesn’t look back at Sherlock, but he hears him scoffs. “I see nothing reproachable with my behaviour. You were asking the suspect ridiculous questions and refused to listen to me; thanks to my actions we were capable of presenting proof to book the perpetrator who was a horrible human being; and I simply repeated to Dectective Blanchard your own words.”

 

“You see nothing wrong in undermining my authority with a suspect, and in fucking over my professional relationships—obviously you don’t! And much less see anything wrong in taking risks with investigations even though you should know full well by now they are watching Joan and you closer than ever—but perhaps it doesn’t matter to you since you see to just need to move your wand to make all the consequences of your actions go away like magic!”

 

It’s a testament to New York City that no people in the streets pay that much attention to the two grown men railing at one another in public.  

 

Sherlock throws his hands in the air in a jerky movement, “Should I lie and pretend then? Will it make you happy if I start staying silent whenever I see that our investigation is not going in the right direction? Will it satisfy you if I put on a show in front of your imbecile colleagues and act as if no one else in the world had taken notice of their incompetence? Will you take responsibility if we let a criminal escape because we forced ourselves to follow all due procedures?”

 

“The problem with you is not so much what you do, but the fucked-up beliefs that motivate them. You believe yourself above the law because, what, you’re a bit smarter than the rest of us? You believe that you don’t need to show a modicum of respect towards others because you’re above all those dumb social niceties or something?”

 

“You are implying I do not respect you,” Sherlock says, his face contorted in a weird expression that seems both callous and wary.  

 

“If this is how you treat people you have respect for I pray for the people you think lowly of,” Marcus says in a final bout of anger. “I don’t even know why I try to level with you. Just ask Joan if you’re curious how a grown-up should act around others,” he adds, his tone too angry for him to sound like he’s actually above the situation. He walks away.

 

Sherlock doesn’t keep following him after that.

 

When he arrives home, he childishly closes the door of his apartment more loudly than usual. He sits down in a huff. He sends Joan a message: “how do you manage to live with him without strangling him????” and doesn’t expect an answer for now since she is  probably already walking around Central Park hand in hand with Mary or some other nice date scenarios he can conjure up in his head.

 

He doesn’t end up watching a telenovela in the end—he’s  had his share of dramatics for the day.

 

The next day at the station, when they get a case that has them calling for the help of the Dynamic Duo as some of the other people at the station have taken to calling them, Marcus almost asks Captain Gregson to assign another detective to the case. But he is a professional, and he can keep his anger at Sherlock under wraps to conduct the investigation as usual—or at least he tells himself so.

 

Marcus keeps his interactions with Sherlock as professional and sterile as possible, until he stumbles by accident on Sherlock apologizing to Detective Blanchard—in a truly horrific and tactless manner, but a sort of apology still.

 

After a day of work, he has to admit Sherlock has been on his best behaviour. The next day, when he comes to the station to continue with their investigation, Marcus finds a plate of unpalatable Yorkshire puddings on his desk. It’s not an apology, but he figures he will take it. 

 

When he teases in good humour that Sherlock should not try to poison him with his cooking, Sherlock gives him a strangely sincere smile. Next to them, Joan sighs in relief and tells them she is glad she can call off the intervention she was starting to plan with Captain Gregson.

 

“Unless Detective Bell has other grievances to share with me, I think we have no other reason to give rise to alarm.”

 

“I’m not that optimistic. Let’s wait to see if he’s going to be able to keep his good behaviour,” Marcus says   to Joan.

 

As another form of non-apology apology, Sherlock invites him to eat Northern style Chinese cuisine, which he insists will not be one bit spicy. This time when they leave the restaurant, they do not subject the population of New York City to another shouting match. Marcus does not examine why that alone is enough to leave him with a smile on his face as he gets home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not fully satisfied with the chapter but I really wanted to have a moment of Marcus just laying it on Sherlock that his callous behavior needs to checked, like yesterday. I also wanted to explore how petty Sherlock acted when Marcus was ignoring him after the Incident(tm) on the show. The result being a chapter full of passive-aggressiveness. 
> 
> Again, I'd love to hear your thoughts about the chapter.


	4. the 'hashing over important life decisions' coffee date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Marcus gets a job offer, an ex is remembered and Sherlock wears a new coat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life was very upsetting today, so I wrote this chapter instead of doing important stuff. 
> 
> Once again, this chapter is non-beta-ed. Sorry for the typos, grammar mishaps, and other signs that I proof-read this chapter after drinking many-a-cider.

To say that he was surprised is an under-statement. On a fine Wednesday morning, he received an email that had left him looking blankly at this computer screen for a while too long. It was a job offer, from New Jersey, highlighting some of the perks that came with it: shorter hours; better chances of a promotion down the line; a quieter town; more reasonable rents. The captain of the station had been impressed by his stats and his reputation, and had sent him the formal offer through all the proper channels, even letting know Captain Gregson about it. She didn’t want to poach him under his Captain’s watch, she had told him over the phone later that same morning, but simply let him know they were interested to have him on the team.

 

He remembers her from a case he worked a long way back, when they had needed to collaborate with the station over a suspect who had hidden at his parents’ after the crime. His impression of Captain Mercado then was that, even though she was very different from his present boss, she seemed like she shared the same qualities: fair, dedicated and always looking out for her team. In another world, he is sure he would have enjoyed working under her. But New York is where he’s from, and he likes it here.

 

However, because he knows about the whole affair, Captain Gregson decides to send him home, arguing that he needs some time to make a decision, and that he needs to use some of his vacation days in any case. Marcus doesn’t think he needs to mull it over. He doesn’t really feel strongly about the offer, but he listens to Captain Gregson. He appreciates what the gesture means to convey: that, no matter what the outcome is, even if it means losing his protégé, his Captain only wants him to make the best decision for himself.

 

Spring is almost taking over New York City, but at 52 degrees this Wednesday of March is reminding residents and tourists alike that it is not quite there yet. The sun is shining bright outside, which invites him to go for a run.

 

The only problem, once he’s back home, has showered and has eaten lunch, is that he finds himself almost claustrophobic inside of his apartment. Marcus paces around a little bit, unsure whether to start a cycle of Netflix binge-watching, or to try to do something more productive with himself. On an impulse, he grabs a notebook and a book from his library— “The Name of the Rose,” something one of his ex gave him years ago telling him it would make him interact with the world at another level. He never went around to actually reading it, but he figures, why not?

 

He walks for a little while, though not too far, and settles in a nice independent café. He orders a cappuccino and even buys a biscotti to go along with it. He’s been careful about his sugar intake, what with his mother’s newly-diagnosed diabetes, but from time to time he still allows himself to indulge.

 

He settles at a small table in a corner, and spends the first five minutes drinking his coffee and taking an occasional bite of his biscotti while letting the sounds and smells of the coffee store surround him. But it doesn’t take long for him to grow restless again, and he picks up the book he brought with him. He reminds himself he’s been meaning to expand his taste in literature.

 

“ _In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was beginning with God and the duty of every faithful monk would be to repeat every day with chanting humility the one never-changing event whose incontrovertible truth can be asserted. But we see now through a glass darkly, and the truth, before it is revealed to all, face to face, we see in fragments (alas, how illegible) in the error of the world…_ ”

 

Jesus, he can’t do this. He remembers now why he never got around to reading it in the first place. He also remembers the reason why his relationship with Gabrjela didn’t work out: they didn’t have much in common. It wasn’t so much that she was a bookworm: Marcus loves curious, inquisitive, intelligent people. But with Gabrjela, everything was always theoretical and metaphorical and needed to be third degree: nothing she discussed, nothing she concerned herself with had to do with the real world. She would give lectures about neoliberalism over dinner, but always had something better to do when he invited her to go volunteer with him. She was smart, knew herself to be, but never applied it in a way that he felt made a difference. Sometimes he felt that she was so consumed with the idea of deconstructing the world around her that she didn’t actively take part in it. She was an observer, but he had always been a doer. What he might have lacked in analytical skills, he made up with a willingness to act. That is perhaps why Gabrjela realized first that their relationship was not working out, but why he had been the one to end up things between them.

 

Marcus sighs—this is why he hates taking a day off. He’s in a coffee store, with a book that he has no intention to ever read, and he is now rehashing one of his many failed relationships. He’d rather be out there in the field, doing something useful, than letting his mind wander to these types of topics.

 

He looks at his now empty cup of coffee, and considers leaving the coffee store althogether. But he remembers he has taken with him a notebook. He flips through it, reading lists of features and deductions he’s written in his own chicken scrawl.

 

To stay sharp, he’s gotten into the habit of turning people-watching into people-deducing. On the subway, in the waiting room before his dentist appointments, while sitting in the park and basking in the warmth of summer, he’d pick people out of the crowd and try to look at them like they were a puzzle to solve. It’s not prime time entertainment, but at the moment it feels like a leg up reminiscing about his ex.

 

He scans the people sitting down in the café. Most of the people are alone, typing away on their laptops, or are leaving with their orders in paper cups. He looks over for a moment at the employees, one man at the cash register taking the orders and a woman working the espresso machine. Finally, he spots in his line of vision one patron who he feels he can observe without looking too much like a suspicious character.

 

She is wearing clothes that he would not describe as well-coordinated—but he understands very little about what is considered current and on trend inside the fashionable crowds of the Big Apple. She has paint stains on her jeans jacket. Her face is bare, her hair messy and she has those large, hipster glasses that people have taken to wear to Marcus’ never-ending astonishment. She is alone her table, and seems to be writing—or drawing, in a notebook. He writes in his notes “art student” and try to figure out more things about her. She has headphones on, but he is too far to hear any music coming out from it.

 

Her foot is moving along too fast to follow an actual rhythm. She is slouching on her chair and keeps biting the inside of her cheek. “Anxious type,” he adds to the first item on his list. He can see her sniffing a few times before she reaches into her backpack for tissues, and writes down “Cold”.

 

He looks back at his notes, a little unsatisfied. He guesses it’s easier to figure things out of people who are interacting with another person.

 

“One double-shot espresso for… Sherlock?” he hears the barista call, hesitation clear in her voice at the name.

 

Marcus’s eyes shoot up from his notebook and squints at the people in the coffee store—he’s been so absorbed in the person he was observing and he did not notice additions to the café’s clientele. The person to whom the name belong is exactly who he expects it to be. Sherlock walks with decided steps toward Marcus’ table, holding the paper cup he just got from the barista. He is wearing a black button-down shirt with a brown jacket under a warm-looking woolen coat Marcus has never seen him wear before. He is clean-shaven, and looks like he has gotten a haircut since their last case, his hair cropped short.

 

“Fancy seeing you here, detective.”

 

“I don’t even want to know how you figured out I was here.”

 

“May I join you?” Sherlock asks, gesturing at the other chair. Marcus shrugs, and looks back down on his notes.

 

“Fair guess, but wrong.” Sherlock says, always immediately.

 

“What?”  
  
“She is not an art student, but a graduate student.”

 

Of course Sherlock Holmes would be able to read in a second upside-down writing. Marcus can imagine him practicing for hours on ends, probably when he was still just a kid, or even berating at Joan to do the same: ‘Watson, do you realize how _vital_ to detective work this ability is?’ the Holmes he conjures up in his head asks while pacing around the Brownstone, holding a notepad in his hands which he flashes only for a split of a second before shouting at Joan’s inability to make out the words, ‘You _must_ be able to invade anyone’s privacy at a glance! How else will you read the notes the lead detective on a case has written?’ Okay, perhaps he’s let his thoughts wander too far.  

 

“How can you be so sure of that?” Marcus tells Sherlock, not willing to accept without proof that his hypothesis was wrong.

 

“Her shoes and bag, obviously.”

 

“Obviously,” Marcus repeats with ill-humour.

 

“You noticed the sort of eccentricity of her dress. But what you missed were her shoes and backpack. Now, while her clothes are a mismatch of different styles and sizes of clothing, her shoes are made of sturdy black leather with what you could call a ‘classic’ design. Her bag too, is black, very simple, but from a brand known for its durable products. Clearly, they are bought with the implicit goal of using them for a very long time and in a variety of situations, hence the common-ness of the design and colour choice. These more conservative choice also helps us infer that the eccentricity of her dress comes more from a question of finances, than as a means to make a fashion statement. This tells us she is probably from a middle-class background: she has incorporated the idea that it is worth it—and possible!—to spend more money on certain items, like shoes and bags, but that she favours durability and convenience over a trendy design or a luxury brand. Moreover, the paint stains on her jacket are in all in one colour; that with the texture seems to point to wall paint, not acrylic or oil. The lack of make-up and the fact she doesn’t use hair products or style her hair in intricate ways also helps disapprove the theory of an art student.”

 

During his monologue of explanations, Sherlock is as usual expressive and moves his hands with enough vigor to gain a raised eyebrow from the man typing at his computer at the table next to them—even though he probably couldn’t make out Sherlock’s monologue through the huge headphones he is wearing.

 

“Okay, so my guess was wrong,” Marcus says after hearing the whole of Sherlock’s explanations. “But what about her screams graduate student?”

 

“She shows no sign of being in a professional career, which usually requires a more polished presentation, nor of being in manual labour. The plainness of her presentation and her inferred financial situation, in addition to the utilitarian nature of her backpack, which suggests she is used to carrying around heavy items like books and a laptop--and the fact she seems to be under stress, all points toward graduate student.” He adds, as an after-thought, “but you were right about her being the anxious type and having a cold.”  

 

Marcus doesn’t say anything to that, but he takes his pen and strikes down the notes he had written about her. 

 

Sherlock cocks his head. “You are using your left hand.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I didn’t know you too were ambidextrous.”

 

Marcus shrugs. “I just learned to use it when my right hand wouldn’t work, you know.”

 

Sherlock frowns, seemingly upset he didn’t connect the dots from the get-go. Must be hard for him to realize he cannot automatically deduce everything, Marcus thinks—perhaps a little meanly.  

 

A beat passes as Sherlock seems to be contemplating something, until he takes another gulp of his coffee. He puts the paper cup down on the table, then sets his hands on the table, takes them up again, aborts a movement, to finally clasp them in front of him.

 

“Well, I am not here to discuss the consequences of my actions,” he says, after all that ceremony.

 

“And what are you here to talk to me about—let me guess. The position I was offered,” Marcus leans back against his chair and crosses his arms. “Now, let me guess again. You hate the idea of having to work with someone like Detective Nash again, so you’ll advise me not to take it.”

 

Sherlock unclasps his hands, taps the plastic lid of his coffee cup, and purses his lips.

 

“It is not my place to tell you what to do.”

 

Marcus pauses to stare at Sherlock, trying to see if anything in his expression seems to hint at anything. Sherlock seems to be suddenly very interested in the man sitting next to them, his stare stuck there.

 

“If it were your place to tell me what to do, what would you say?”

 

“Simply that I believe you to be standard deviations above the norm as a detective, and that being around Joan and I will only improve the quality of your work,” he turns back his gaze on Marcus. “For this reason alone, you should stay in New York.”

 

Marcus hates it when Sherlock implies that somehow, just by basking Marcus in his presence, he transferred some of his deduction superpowers to Marcus. It’s needlessly arrogant, and false. Marcus didn’t gain skills by osmosis nor did he need Sherlock to come around for him to close a case and put criminals in jail.

 

But Marcus has to admit that it is true that he has become a better detective in the last few years. To be perfectly honest, when Sherlock and Joan first came to the precinct, Marcus was plateauing. He was, admittedly, the detective with the most potential in the station, and he had been Captain Gregson’s number one and protégé for some time. He was no longer wet behind the ears, and he had thought at this point that he had seen and heard it all. Other detectives came up to him when they were having problems with a case, and he was generally regarded as the best guy they had.

 

Marcus can recognize now that it had made him complacent. Without any competition, secure in the fact everyone around him recognized he was doing great work, he had not been striving—or even recognizing that he needed to work on becoming a better detective than he already was. In those days, Marcus knew how to be a hard-working, knew he needed to keep his edge, knew he needed to keep his head above the water despite all the tragedy and grimness he encountered; but he had stopped thinking he needed to keep improving.

 

He remembers how much his pride had been hurt the first time he had worked a case with Sherlock, and not only because Sherlock kept contradicting every scenario he advanced. Marcus was embarrassed looking back at this own behavior: he remembers too well how ready he had been to dismiss techniques and conclusions that felt foreign and far-fetched. At the time, he did end up doing the right thing and recognizing he had been in the wrong—in this case—and did his part to work with the new consulting detective in order to catch the real suspect. But after it was all done, Marcus kept thinking about the events that had transpired, particularly how he might have missed the particulars of the case because he was too busy looking at the crime scene like it were just another robbery gone wrong like he’d seen hundred times before. He recognizes it had been an outlandish scenario and that the clues had been willingly misleading, but it was enough to plant the seed in him of self-doubt, enough to make him realize he needed to keep his mind open to new learning opportunities. Some of them might have included watching Joan and Sherlock work. Some of them were meeting for coffee and donuts with Captain Gregson to review old and cold cases. Some of them might have included going through catalogues of the new surveillance technologies they keep putting on the market. Some of them were just learning to stretch his imagination and try to fit his mind around the workings of the seemingly increasingly creative criminals they encountered. Some of it was simply training his deduction muscles whenever he could, such as when he was sitting down in a coffee store with nothing better to occupy his time.  

 

“That’s a crap reason for me to stay,” Marcus finally replies to Sherlock’s claim.  

 

“You need the challenge. You need to feel your work is not just important, but also difficult and complicated. I doubt New Jersey will provide you with what you need.”

 

Marcus scoffs. “I don’t understand how you can feel always so certain about deducing things out of people. How can you be so sure of what I want that you’d feel you’d know better than I would?”

 

“People tend to struggle to objectively assess themselves—they are too biased for that. As to knowing what you want, I would not dare to make such a sweeping statement. But, in this current situation, and considering I have known you now for more than three years, I can say with conviction that I know, professionally at least, what will be more satisfying to you.”

 

Marcus wants to keep poking at Sherlock. Wants to know the real motivations he hides between his façade of objective deductions.

 

“If you are so sure it is what I want to be stay in New York, why did you follow me here?”

 

“I figured you could always enjoy someone to share your thoughts with—I find that my thought process is greatly aided by talking to another person, but never so much when it is someone who I also value, which is something I discovered when my partnership with Watson started.”

 

“So you think I value you?”

  
“I would like it to be so,” Sherlock says, like this is something people actually say, in a voice this neither vulnerable nor mocking. Like he is just sharing a fact, something objectively true and unquestionable.

 

Marcus’ mind supplies him almost on cue with a sarcastic remark, something that will downplay the weirdly honest turn the conversation has taken, but he thinks: “to hell with it’.

 

“I never intended to take the job,” he admits, honestly. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered Captain Mercado remembered me and was impressed with my work. But this is where I want to be.”

 

Sherlock gives him a grin. “Well. Happy news! Joan will be glad.”

 

“Yeah, you guys would be sad to lose such an excellent resource, right?”

 

“Now, I am certain you are aware our relationship is more than a professional one and that Joan and I have long stopped thinking of you simply in terms of how helpful you are to our investigations.”

 

“The department’s investigations,” Marcus corrects, automatically, but he is more surprised than he cares to admit. He knows Joan to be a friend, a very good one at that, but he always thought and felt Sherlock only saw him as a cog inside his deduction machine.

 

Sherlock drinks the remainder of his coffee, gives Marcus another grin, and says, “Well, now that the conversation is out of the way, I think it is high time you arrest our neighbor,” Sherlock says with a glance at the man on his laptop, who thankfully didn’t seem to hear him through his headphones.

 

“What?”

 

“One of those unimaginative hackers using public wi-fi to access people’s passwords and personal information,” Sherlock informs him.  

 

“How can you—how did you—“ Marcus gives up.

 

“Just take out the badge you have in the inside pocket of your coat and we can take him to the station down the street.”

 

Marcus opens his mouth to ask him how he can possibly know he kept his badge with him when he left the station this morning, but just ends up shaking his head.

 

For a second he wonders what Gabrjela and Sherlock would have made of one another, and decides that there lies madness. Marcus has always been more action-oriented, anyways. He grabs his badge and the pair of handcuffs in the inside pocket of his coat.

 

That’s what his life is like, Marcus supposes. He enters a coffee store alone to relax and pass the time, and he leaves with a perp and an overly caffeinated consulting detective who keeps insulting the said perp for being a terribly obvious hacker with no style or finesse.

 

He wonders when he started feeling like he didn’t want it to be any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No offence meant to Mr. Eco. I am sure the book is great--it's on my amazon wishlist and everything! I will read it someday, I swear! I just have been in the mood for self-indulgent, saccharine novels this year and who can blame me for that?
> 
> I will probably not upload a new chapter for some time: I don't have a clear idea yet of what I want to write, so it will probably take a little while to put something on paper that is not too boring or formulaic. I should also get more work done on my thesis if I want to be able to graduate on time (do I want to be able to graduate is another question altogether). Ah, adulthood~ 
> 
> I forgot to mention it until now, but you can find me on tumblr under my other semiotics-inspired url: http://intertextualgaps.tumblr.com/
> 
> Again, would love to hear your thoughts on the fic so far.


	5. An Impromptu Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pastries are ingested, cases are discussed, and Sherlock keeps using Latin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry it took so long to update. I have been trying to force myself to make progress on my thesis and to complete a work contract. 
> 
> The inspiration behind this chapter was actually quite simple. I wanted 1) to remind ourselves that Marcus volunteers 2) to see Marcus interact with people that he met outside of his work 3) to give you the cute mental image of Marcus with a baby in his lap 4) to show Marcus has indeed been working on his French in his spare time 5) to give a nod to the events of the season 3 finale even though this fic is still not entirely canon-compliant for season 3 and 4. 
> 
> Again, this is non-beta-ed. Please forgive all the typos and grammar mistakes.

Spring has arrived in New York, with in tow its cortège of greeneries and allergies. Through the open window of the sitting room in Santiago’s apartment, a cool breeze is coming in and making Marcus thankful for having thought of taking allergy medication this morning before he left his own place. Being attacked with uncontrollable sneezing is not recommend when holding Lilly—a three months old unbelievably small human being.

 

Marcus met Lilly’s father, Santiago, at the Harlem Youth Center, where he too used to volunteer. Now, with the baby, Santiago stopped coming around, but they’ve known each other long enough to strike a sort of tentative friendship. Marcus sent him a text this week, to know how things were going with his new baby girl, and Santiago invited him over to their place. Today is actually the first time they meet outside of the Youth Center, and so far Marcus doesn’t regret actually _asking_ for some time off in order to see Santiago, and meet his wife and baby girl. Instead of eating out, they decided it would be wiser to have lunch in the comfort of the Oh-Vasquez home, where the eventual fits of crying and the breastfeeding would have no other audience than Marcus.

 

Having eaten his fill of carbonara—Santiago learned how to make pasta during his studies in Italy and Marcus had to admit he was quite the chef—they relocated to a tiny room that worked as a sitting room. It feels cozy and lived in, probably in parts due to Santiago’s paintings adorning the walls, the many pictures of Hae-Young performing on stage, and the baby stuff carelessly scattered everywhere about the room. It gives out a completely different atmosphere from Marcus’ Spartan living space, all about practically and perfect cleanliness.

 

“I can’t believe anyone let you be responsible for a baby,” Marcus says, in a poor mockery of sarcasm since nothing negative can truly exist around the little human currently kicking around in his arms.

  
“That’s the beauty of it, I didn’t need to ask for anyone’s permission. We just had sex— _a lot_ —and then, bam! A fucking human life!” Santiago replies.

 

“Watch what you say,” his wife chastises him from the sofa where she is lying down. She looks content, but tired: Lilly has apparently kept her awake all through the night, crying every hour or so for more food like the complete glutton that she is.

 

“Oh for fuck sake’s, Hae Young, it’s not like she can hear me,” Santiago replies with careless curse words peppered in his speech, an habit Marcus at first found disconcerting, but which he’s starting to grow used to.

 

“No, but Marcus can, and you still need to convince him you’re not a total jerk,” Hae Young deadpans in a way Marcus is starting to recognize as her own version of joking.

 

“Thanks for coming, by the way. Having Lilly is the best thing, but it makes it difficult to see people who aren’t not also carrying around diaper bags,” Santiago tells him, with the sort of careless honesty he’s always displayed. “I’m glad you texted.”

 

“I’m glad too. Not many of my friends have babies, especially one as cute as Lilly,” he coos at her. As if on cue, her face starts scrunching up and she wails loudly in his arms. As much as Marcus loves babies, he still feels totally defeated when faced with a crying one. He can never seem the fix the mystery reason behind their being upset.

 

Hae-Young notices his helplessness and sits up on the couch. “It’s okay, she’s probably just tired after all this attention and playing around, and is asking for a nap.”

 

She picks up Lilly from his arms, and takes her to the bedroom.

 

“She’ll probably fall asleep on the rocking chair with Lilly in her arms,” Santiago stage-whispers at him.

 

Hae Young doesn’t actually fall asleep in the bedroom, but when she comes back to the living room, she falls asleep on the couch while they are talking together. When she wakes up from her impromptu nap, Marcus starts taking his leave, thanking them for the meal and the good company.

 

“You can come and baby-sit Lilly anytime you want. Anytime,” Santiago says, half-serious, half-jocking; he hasn’t been able to sleep much either since Lilly was born.  

 

“She’s going to be better company than your ugly mug,” Marcus jokes back.

 

They promise to go for a run together some time soon, and Hae-Young tells him he’s welcome whenever. It feels like the kind of uncomplicated friendship far from the drama of the station that he’s been lacking in his life. As much as he loves Joan and Sherlock, his cop buddies or the EMT friends he’s made along the years, he realized how refreshing it can be to be around people who lead completely different lives and who do not want to talk about cases and try to out-gross each other with medical stories.

 

So when he is back out on the streets, he doesn’t even care—too much—about the way the pollen is making his eyes prickle and his nose stuffy despite the anti-allergy medication coursing in his body. He’s got to hold a cute baby today and ate home-made pasta: the world can throw nothing at him that will hinder his good mood.

 

He’s walking to the nearest subway station when he notices someone is watching him, and, just like that, there goes his good mood. Marcus tries not to be paranoid, but after getting shot and framed for murder—and knowing both Joan and Sherlock managed to get kidnapped before—he likes to think it’s better to err on the right side of caution.

 

His instinct kicks down when he realises who the person looking at him is.

 

Marcus jay-walks to cross the street and lands next to Sherlock, who is looking at him with one eyebrow up. He is wearing his traditional printed shirt and jacket, and he has a slight flush on his cheeks from the brisk pace of walking he tends to assume even when he as no emergency to attend—Marcus thinks of it as Sherlock’s own brand of walking that is all about getting to point B as quickly as his crisped limbs will allow.

 

“Good afternoon, Detective,”

 

“Are you stalking me?” Marcus asks warily—two weeks ago, Sherlock had appeared out of nowhere when he’d been getting food at a restaurant to bring to the Brownstone for brunch, and he’s almost scared Sherlock has put a tracking device on him.  

 

Sherlock raises an eyebrow at him. “Nonsense. I am on my way back from Alfredo’s.”

 

The name springs back the memory of the events that unfolded not so long ago. Sometimes, it is easy to remember that Sherlock relapsed and nearly killed a man. That Alfredo himself nearly died, although now he is back in full health according to Joan, even if he’s inherited from the incident a newfound claustrophobia that makes it difficult for him to be in closed spaces.

 

“He’s still teaching you how to steal cars?” Marcus asks, instead of any other question he feels on the tip of his tongue.

 

Sherlock scoffs and repeats in a derisive mumble, “teaching me how to steal car.” In a louder voice, he adds petulantly, “I knew perfectly well how to steal vehicules before I met Alfredo. But I have no qualms acknowledging I cannot possess the same level of skills as a dedicated artisan to his craft, since I have always considered carjacking a necessary _yet_ secondary set of knowledge to my primary interest, _id est_ , to detective work.”

 

“I’ve never learned how to steal a car and yet, here I am, a detective,” Marcus says as a pedestrian runs into him, forcing him to step into Sherlock’s personal space, which Sherlock strangely does not seem to react to.

 

“If you’d accept to become my apprentice, I would address these deficiencies in your training,” Sherlock says, looking directly at him, the eye contact made more unnerving by their proximity. Marcus wants to take a step back—or a step forward, he can’t tell for a second.

 

Marcus decides to change the subject, and moves to Sherlock’s side so that he too has his back to the laundromat behind them. “Where is your apprentice, by the way? I texted Joan yesterday but she’s never got back to me.”

 

“Joan is with Agent Morstan—although, for business, not pleasure. Her services have been requested,” Sherlock explains. “She is currently exploring the wild depths of your land, in one of those states that ends with a vowel. I did not pay much attention to her explanations since my help was not required.”

 

“You mean they wouldn’t let you work on the case with her,” Marcus translates as he watches the bustle of people walking past them.

 

“The FBI should learn to put the benefit of this country before any forms of grudges, but this would require them to be able to think logically which seems above their paygrade,” Sherlock huffs, doing nothing to hide his pettiness.  

 

“Well, at least you know they are in good hands with Joan.”

 

“Yes, her dalliance with Agent Morstan has been most productive not only for her own benefit, but also to that of the FBI,” Sherlock acquiesces, turning his head in Marcus’ direction.

 

“You really have issues with calling people by their names, do you?” Marcus tells him.

 

Sherlock gives him a slight knowing grin before he says, taking a step to join back the movement of the pedestrians, “Well, then, Detective.”

 

Sherlock does not finish the thought, and Marcus knows this is where that is where he is supposed to say something about how he’s going to head home, and give his goodbyes. Instead, what comes out of his mouth is, “You got some free time then, with Joan out of the state and no cases?”

 

“I am _ad libitum_.”

 

Marcus arches his eyebrow and decides to ignore the Latin.

 

“I am guessing that means you are free,” he pauses, tries to convince himself that this is a terrible idea, but adds, “There is a great pastry place close to here. Want to grab something?”

 

Sherlock does not react, except to give him a quizzical-looking expression.

Marcus is about to take back the offer when, in a swift and tense movement, Sherlock swivels to his side and jerks his arm northward.

 

“Lead the way, Detective.”

 

“Marcus,” he corrects, automatically, and sets off with Sherlock who hooks his arms behind his back.  

 

It is a short walk to the _boulangerie_ Marcus had in mind, and it is spent in comfortable silence.

 

When they enter the small establishment, meant more to buy flaky goodness and warm bread on the go than to have patrons sit at the few small tables along the wall, heavenly smells fill his stuffy nose.

 

Marcus probably should not indulge so much after the huge plate of pasta he ingested at lunch, but their _tarte à la mûre_ is to die for and he cannot refuse himself. Sherlock considers the display case and settles on a croissant and some macarons. Marcus also gets them coffee, and pays for their order before Sherlock has time to get his wallet out.

 

“Je vais payer tout ensemble,” he tells the employee whose badge proclaims to the world that her name is Constance. She is kind enough not to comment on his atrocious accent, and to indulge his whim to speak French.

 

“Bien sûr. Ça fera vingt-deux dollars et nonante quatre,” she replies, and he stumbles on her choice of words, realizing belatedly she is Belgian and not French like he had assumed.

 

He pays with his card while Sherlock watches the exchange, and they settle with their bounty at one of the small table.

 

“I’ve brought Joan some of their croissants before and she loved them,” Marcus comments when Sherlock tears the tip of the croissant on his plate.

 

“Seems like a superior establishment—I am surprised I haven’t heard of its existence before. It is quite difficult to find worthy pâtissiers in New York City.

 

Sherlock recounts his attempts—ultimately successful—to breach the Tesla car Alfredo had been commissioned to work on while they drink their coffees and eat bites of their pastries. Expectedly, however, the conversation drifts back to cases.

 

“You’ve got to admit we’ve got some weird cases of late,” Marcus says intently, thinking back on the madness of the past few weeks.

 

“I am not quite sure I get what you mean,” Sherlock comments, because of course Sherlock would stay nonplussed at the weirdness of it all.

 

“I mean… Just remember that case, last month, the ‘perfect crime’ as you liked to call it.” This makes Sherlock light up and sit straighter in his seat as he recalls the details of the case.

 

“Yes it was quite the puzzle since the killer had so much experience devising clever crimes.”

 

“Because he was a writer for a detective TV show,” Marcus feels the need to add. That had to be the strangest case of occupational hazard.

 

“There would be no better training, to be sure. Serial killers have patterns, they fall into a routine which tends to lead them to become complacent. But the purpose of emulating different killers, for every episode, now _that_ requires the kind of mental gymnastics which allows one person—although far from being a genius, as we discovered—to devise a crime seemingly perfect in every way. He had all the benefits of trial and error without the risks of incarceration,” Sherlock concludes.

 

Marcus wants to respond, but a sneeze overtakes him. He reaches for a napkin, before finally telling Sherlock, “But you’ve got to admit it was a little out there, as far as crime, motives and means go.”

 

“I suppose,” Sherlock courteously admits, pushing the rest of the napkins on the table toward Marcus. “But perhaps you can appreciate the case we had last week more than this one. It was a classic case of _a falsis principiis proficisci_ ,”

 

Marcus has to wonder why Sherlock, who claims to distill from his mind all unnecessary knowledge, somewhat thought that Latin—now, Latin _had_ to stay.

 

“You know there’s a reason why Latin is a dead language, right?”

 

Sherlock rolls his eyes, and ignores Marcus’ tangent to go back to discussing the case he had brought up. “Nothing skews up more an investigation that a missing person case where the victim is not actually missing nor actually a victim.”

 

“It felt like we were in the middle of Gone Girl.”

 

Sherlock furrows his brows in a silent question.

 

“It’s a book. Oh, and a movie. About a woman who—nevermind. It was just kind of similar.”

 

“Truth is stranger than fiction,” Sherlock quotes. His knee knocks against Marcus under the table, and seems to settle there.

 

"Because unlike truth, fiction has to stick to possibilities,” Marcus finishes. “Didn’t know you’d know about Mark Twain.”

 

“I have not completely removed from my brain all the information I encountered during my school years,” Sherlock replies. “I simply usually prefer to read ouvrages of more substance.”

 

“Let me guess. Books about bees; books about sorts of tobacco; books about conspiracy theories.”

 

“I feel like you’ve grown to know me quite well, Detective,” Sherlock replies with a wry grin. The flakes of croissant on the corner of his mouth somewhat makes Marcus think he looks endearing and—Marcus needs to stop this train of thought.

 

The conversation keeps going, and Marcus realizes that as much as he enjoys having friends removed from the crazy world of cases and police-work, his heart is also one-hundred percent into his job. Even if sometimes he wonders if his work, or the people with whom he works, will not one day end up driving him crazy.

  
The next big cases they get only work to give weight to his fears.

 

Four days later, in a weird twist of fate, the mangled body of a 35-year-old male is found in an apartment after his unlucky and now traumatized boyfriend stumbled upon it. Captain Gregson already made the call to Joan and Sherlock before Marcus has made it to the crime scene.

 

He’s putting on latex gloves when he looks up and sees the creepy blood writing on the way—why do murderers feel like they have to do something tacky like that, he ponders. It reads, “Beati qui ambulant lege domini,” because apparently the whole universe is out there to make a farce out of his existence.

 

He registers the pair of footsteps coming in behind him. He doesn’t turn around to head a warning, “Don’t you dare, Holmes.”

 

“Ah, _beati qui ambulant lege domini—_ Blessed are they who walk in the law of the Lord,” Sherlock recites with a note of self-satisfaction in his voice. “Coincidentally found at the entrance of St-Andrew’s Church. Did you know it was based on Psalm 119, also known as _Ashrei temimei derecho_ , the longest psalm contained in the Bible?”

 

Marcus can see Joan, who is crouching to look more closely at the wounds on the body, roll her eyes at her partner, but she does say anything.

 

“Any reason why you seem to remember the Wikipedia entry for stuff like that but somehow can’t register billboards announcing mainstream movies?” Marcus asks, taking a notepad from one of the new guy working the crime scene.

 

“Religious doctrine can offer many a motivation for killing, which makes studying its content and understanding how it might be used as a moral framework upon which horrifying acts against other people could be committed a part of my training. Remembering which insipid film won an irrelevant award does not.”

 

Somehow Sherlock manages to give out his monologue while inspecting the room for clues. Marcus has to hand it to him; his need to constantly show-off does not distract him from the ultimate goal of finding out the identity of the perpetrator behind this crime scene.

 

“Nothing here guarantees he’ll be a Christian zealot. Maybe he’s just trying to throw us off with that Latin nonsense,” Marcus says because he won’t lose to Sherlock.

 

Joan might be rolling her eyes at them both this time, but she’s nice enough to not say anything once again.

 

The man they arrest turns out to be a self-named Christian Warrior who is, also, a Linguist of Classical Languages at NYU. He shares with Captain Gregson in the interrogation room that is plan was to rid the Earth of all gay people or, in his words, _homophiles_ (he apparently considers any word derived from both Latin and Greek roots to be as much of an abomination as a man lying with another man).  Along the investigation, a not-so-secretly-smug Sherlock kept using dead and otherwise pretty useless languages to find clues. Marcus never understood the universe’s sense of humour.

 

However, a week later, a complex web of deceit and lies leads to the murder of a famous actress, and Sherlock’s complete lack of knowledge of celebrity culture and mainstream cultural works has him keep IMDB open on his phone during the whole investigation.

 

Marcus calls it cosmic justice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can write heterosexual couples into my stories; who would have thought? 
> 
> Did I create entire, complicated back-stories for both Santiago and Hae-Young? Yes. Yes, of course I did. 
> 
> I have been planning the next chapters, which is why I can now say with confidence the fic will be 10 chapters long. The next update might take some time again, since I am still writing my thesis and will be travelling this month. 
> 
> Again, I would love to hear your thoughts on the chapter and on the story as a whole. 
> 
> You can come and say hi on tumblr: http://intertextualgaps.tumblr.com/


	6. The Crashed Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sherlock does not understand boundaries, and Marcus thinks about his past and his future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow... this took a long time to write. I seriously finished proof-reading the chapter and then my internet died on me. I'm updating this from a café... 
> 
> I hope the fact that the chapter is extra-long will help with the long wait. Are there still people out there who remember this fic exists after all this time??? Who knows! 
> 
> I realize the format of this fic is getting out of hand: it went from a sort of episodic format to long chapters which follow no particular narrative arc. The episodic format just doesn't allow for all the character development and explorations I want. I mean, if the writers keep giving us so little information about Marcus, I guess I'll just have to make up my own backstory for him and populate his life with a million people!
> 
> As usual, non-beta-ed. Sorry for the typos and mistakes.

Marcus knows better than to get too involved with social media: he’s seen it backfire one time too many for other detectives whose personal lives and opinions ended up catching up with their professional ones. Yet, as much as he tries to value privacy and professional conduct, he has long made peace with the fact that keeping a Facebook account is almost as necessary as having a cellphone number. He uses it to keep in touch with family members, friends from his childhood and the Academy, sometimes even coworkers.

 

He never really posts anything, doesn’t have a profile picture and uses only his last name, but at least he gets to keep track of things happening in other people’s life: he sees the engagement pictures, the baby pictures and the ‘here’s-what-I-am-eating’ pictures. He knows people tend to complain about the superficiality of social media, and the futility of sharing both mundane and more exceptional moments with the rest of the world. Marcus does not mind it though, from the couple selfies at the park to pictures of ice cream cones with too much candy stacked on top of them: it allows him to catch glimpses of what a normal life looks like, helps remind him of why he chose his profession despite the ways in which it has taken over his life in more ways than he can even begin to name.

 

Marcus feels his cellphone vibrate in his pocket while he is stir-frying some vegetables—the clock on his oven indicates 8:30 but he has yet to put any food in his body since the sandwich he ate at his desk seven hours ago. The Facebook alert turns out to be a message from Cassie Miller, his high school girlfriend who left the state a few years ago for a job.

 

She’s in town briefly to be a bridesmaid for one of her old high school friend, she announces, and wants to see if he can make time to have dinner with her. Can he spare her an evening to catch up? He jokes about feeling left out since he wasn’t invited to the wedding—it’s only fair, though; he was never close to Jada, certainly not in the way Cassie was—and happily makes dinner plan with her over messages while stirring his own dinner.

 

The next day, when Joan comes to his place to watch the game as has become their tradition, he mentions Cassie’s visit. All the while, Mary is sitting on the sofa next to Joan, drinking a cold beer, her hand resting on Joan’s thigh like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Marcus can’t help glimpse at her during the conversation, at the way she and Joan fit and fold together, at the knowing stares they share—and he can’t help be reminded of the sort of easy affection he shared with Cassie back when they were still high school sweethearts. Another part of him cannot help wish to have this in his life too. If Joan has managed, after the still-raw trauma of Andrew’s death, to find someone who can understand the crazy lifestyle they had committed to, Marcus wants to believe he too can find a way to make _this_ work in his life. He’s had put these hopes in the backburner, figured it would happen when it would happen, but seeing Mary and Joan brings these hopes back to the surface—and it’s easy, perhaps, to wonder if Cassie would fit in this life of his. But then, Joan’s favorite player lands a winning hit allowing two teammates to head back to base safe, and the conversation is forgotten amidst the cheering and the sports talk.

 

A few days later, Marcus is walking briskly—he has professional pride and he will not be seen running inside the station—toward Captain Gregson’s office when his phone pings again with the tale-tell sound of a Facebook alert. He ignores it in order to meet Joan and Sherlock, and receives some updates on the case they are currently working on. But when Captain Gregson dismisses them, and after Sherlock and Joan have left to follow god-knows-what trail, he takes two seconds to look at the message before going to meet with a potential witness.

 

It’s from Cassie. It’s a link about a restaurant in New York, asking him if he too would be interested to go, and if he could place a reservation. He messages her back that the place sounds great and that he will take care of it. She replies quickly—he guesses she must be on her lunch break—to thank him and remind him not to forget to do it.

 

Marcus feels affronted. Fine, he was a mess when he was in high school: often forgetting about deadlines and appointments, prone to wearing dirty t-shirts out in public and just generally being a truly embarrassing sixteen year old. He knows that, and he relives this less-than-glossy part of his life whenever he catches a glimpse of the pictures his mother insists on keeping on display. But he’s a fully-grown adult now: he knows how to use a steam cleaner; he pays his taxes on time; he even catches criminals for a living. He can handle remembering to place a reservation.

 

He’ll have to do it later, though. Because he has a witness to meet. But he will remember to do it.

 

One day later, the witness he interviewed turned out to be a bust, and the trail of documents Joan and Sherlock investigated has not given them any new leads. They are heading right into a slump and Marcus has been wracking his brain reviewing photos of the crime scene to see if he can figure out any new details that could help them figure out a suspect or even a motive. With a groan, he rubs his tired eyes and leans back on his desk chair. It’s already two in the afternoon, his computer informs him, and he is reminded of the promise he made yesterday to book the reservation. He reaches over the case files and takes the phone, putting it between his ear and shoulder while he looks up again on his cellphone the number of the restaurant.

 

The call thankfully connects and he’s greeted by a worker. He checks with them to see if they’re booked full for the week—trendy New York restaurants can be unbelievable—but he’s in luck that they still have a few tables.

 

“Yeah, I’d like to book a reservation for two for this week’s Friday, 7pm,” He waits to hear the reply on the other side of the line. “Okay, great. The name is M—“

 

Just like that the phone is taken out of his hands. Without ceremony, Sherlock hangs up and turns toward him.

 

“Make haste, Detective, we have no time to lose.”

 

Marcus gets up in one swift movement, and has to close his eyes and count to three to stop himself from strangling Holmes. “I was making a call,” he says with intent.

 

“Justice does not wait,” Sherlock replies, rolling on the ball of his feet and grabbing the jacket off of his chair to give it to Marcus.

 

Marcus sighs and figures he’ll have to call again whenever this hell of a case will let him catch a break. He’s a responsible adult, he won’t forget to do it.

 

It’s only on Friday night, after he’s met up with Cassie in front of the restaurant that he realizes he’s forgotten to do it. His face must betray him as he advances to greet her, because Cassie arches an eyebrow at him.

 

“You forgot to make the reservation, didn’t you.”

 

It doesn’t sound like a question.

 

“It’s not what you think—I got interrupted in the middle of it and—“

 

“And then you forgot to do it.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Marcus glances at the restaurant, seemingly already bursting with patrons, and the line of hopeful couples on the curb. He can see in the corner of his vision that Cassie just made the same calculations. He feels sheepish.

 

“I mean you totally ruined my night and my plans, but I guess I will find it in me to forgive you. It’s a shame there aren’t any other restaurants in New York City. I am sure now we’re destined to starve to death.”

 

“Ha, ha. As always, your wit _astounds_ me,”

 

“Shut up, you love it,” Cassie grins at him with a hint of mischief that years have not managed to tame out of her. It makes Marcus glad. He’s always admired her relentless ability to make the most of any situation, and to laugh her way out of any annoyance or tragedy. To think that she might grow serious and cynical with age is a demoralizing idea, something that would make him feel one hundred times older than finding a grey hair in his beard when shaving like he did this morning. “Oh, and by the way, good evening.”

 

“I guess we did skip greetings.”

 

“Your mom would be disappointed in us.”

 

“Always been a stickler for good manners.”

 

They share a knowing smile, and just like that Marcus is reminded of the way Cassie and he just click together since they grew together, became adults together.

 

A small silence falls over them, and Cassie whips out her phone. “I’ll check out some restaurants on Yelp. Maybe something will inspire us.”

 

They lean against the wall of the building to allow pedestrians to pass them, head hunched over the phone to look at options in the neighborhoods. People keep passing them by, sometimes rudely knocking into them, but that’s New York City for you. Marcus almost doesn’t even register it. He does notice however when a shadow stops in front of them, and he has no other choice to raise his head to see what the person wants.

 

“Can we help you?” Cassie asks before he has time to look up at the stranger—to realize he is no stranger.

 

“Holmes, what are you doing here?”

 

“Good evening, Detective,” Sherlock says, all British politeness, before turning to Cassie. “Hello Miss Miller. A pleasure.”

 

“You’re here for a reason or just to show off?” Then, to Cassie he adds, “He likes doing his parlour tricks—that’s just something he does. That’s how he knew your name.”

 

“You know perfectly well, Detective, that my investigation and deduction skills are no common parlour tricks.”

 

Marcus wanted to spend a night catching up with an old friend, wanted for one night—one evening!—to have this fantasy of a normal life, and then, there is Sherlock coming to interrupt him. Of course he could not have this.

 

“Someone better be dead,” he warned.

 

“Do not worry, the inhabitants of New York are no less in danger nor safer than they were when you left the station earlier.”

 

“Care to explain why you are following me around on my night off then?” At this Sherlock raises an eyebrow.

 

“Nothing of the sort. I have come to patronize this fine New York establishment.”

 

“I hope you have a reservation for tonight,” Cassie tells him, with good humour that is surprising since a strange man just interrupted them.

 

Sherlock, backlit in a red-ish glow from the neon on the other side of the street, tugs a smile at this. “I have indeed made the necessary arrangements, Miss Miller. Our table awaits us.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“When I realized that Detective Bell,” Sherlock tilts his head in his direction while still addressing Cassie, “failed to remember to place a reservation for your dinner date, I thought I would right the wrong and call the restaurant.”

 

“You were the one who distracted me in the middle of the call,” Marcus defends himself, both to Sherlock and Cassie simultaneously. Then, he realizes belatedly, “Our? You’re not thinking—”

 

“I have to commend Miss Miller for her culinary tastes—most New York City restaurants are either all about style over substance or overly-hyped by pretentious bloggers. But in this case, it was quite the enlightened suggestion.”

 

Cassie is sending him a slightly confused look and Marcus does not even know where to begin with this.

 

“So you decided you wanted to come and crash our dinner date? Because the menu looked good?”

 

“That is quite a grand thing to say to the person whose name is on the reservation,” Sherlock says in a matter-of-fact way, as if the way he is acting is normal, common-sense behavior and Marcus is the one groundlessly fighting him over it. Sometimes it’s too easy to forget why he even tolerates the guy. Sometimes it becomes too difficult not to be affected by Sherlock’s clear attempts to get a rise out of him.

 

“You understand that the department can get rid of you–when you were in London things with Joan were great. So maybe you can try not to antagonize the one detective in the station who still agrees to work with you,” Marcus feels the need to warn him.  

 

Cassie puts a hand on his arm, and addresses Sherlock. “Would you mind giving us a minute? Great, thanks.” She pulls him a little further and before he can open his mouth to explain or apologize, she has a million questions for him. “So that’s one of your coworker from the station?”

 

“Yeah, I mean—kind of. He’s a consulting detective.”

 

“He is doing this to bully you or something?”

 

Marcus almost wants to nod at the accusation, but he feels the need to be honest, “He’s not a bully, but he has a knack for antagonizing people.”

 

“Look, we don’t need to eat there. There are other restaurants in New York City. It’s your call,” she tells him.

 

“But you said you really wanted to go,”

 

“It’s fine, Marcus.”

 

A few feet away from them, Sherlock is looking up at the starless sky of New York, giving them the courtesy of pretending he’s not listening to their conversation—even if he clearly is.

 

“I’m more concerned about you—Sherlock is not an ideal dinner companion,” he says, after a beat because he can’t believe he’s actually considering it.

 

“Marcus Jonah Bell! I’m not that easily intimidated.”

 

“So what will it be, then?” Sherlock asks from his position on the sidewalk, having not moved safe from his rhythm-less movements. “Be it far from my intentions to hurry you, but we might lose our table.”

 

She raises her eyebrows defiantly, and Marcus knows too well from stories he will never be able to tell his mother that Cassie never backs down from what she feels to be a challenge.

 

“Harry Potter, we’re coming,” she tells Sherlock as she locks her elbow with Marcus’.

 

Sherlock does not react to the nickname, but in a swift gesture he motions to the restaurant, leading the way. He commands the attention of the hostess, calls “Holmes, table for three,” and looks expectantly at her until she confirms the name on her list.

 

The restaurant is packed full of people, loud and bright and overwhelming in those first three seconds of stepping in. The next sensory overload comes from the smells permeating the air and Marcus is almost glad for a second that he will get to eat there tonight, even if he owes it to Sherlock Holmes—almost.

 

He soon regrets the thought when, after having only briefly sat down and having tried to provide some introductions despite Sherlock’s scoffs indicating he was already aware of all the information Marcus was providing about Cassie—his mother taught him right—Sherlock turns to Cassie, who is not yet fully prepared to deal with his special brand of lunatics, and asks her:

 

“Tell me, Miss Miller, did you meet with Marcus in the intentions of pursuing him, romantically?”

 

“Oh my god, Holmes. Stop talking. Now.”

 

Marcus does not know what is more offending: that Sherlock figured Marcus’ own interest in rekindling their relationship? That he made the insinuation at Cassie, whom he doesn’t even know? Or that it is probably the reason why he thought it would be good fun to crash their dinner date?

 

“I must say that I understand Marcus to be a cautious, conservative man when it comes to matters of the heart. Reuniting with an old flame would be a probable scenario, but the geographical distance between your two sites of residence would definitely make him pause.”

 

“Shut up. I swear to god if you don’t stop I will make you stop.”

 

“Since his affair with Detective Scott came to an end, Marcus has kept his dalliances to a minimum. The amorous bliss of Joan with her new paramour however, I noticed, has made him more desirous of a romantic episode of his own. The timing of your date is, in essence, perfectly situated to reignite old feelings.”

 

“So are you here to assert Marcus’ dating prospects?” Cassie asks with a raised eyebrow, taking in stride better than Marcus hoped Sherlock’s tangent and thinly-veiled insinuations.

 

“Oh no, nothing of the sort. I am convinced Marcus is better suited to make decisions regarding his romantic life. After all, I can’t account for taste or judgement in these matters: the great love of my life is a homicidal maniac.”

 

“Oh my god,” Marcus groans at the same time Cassie lets out a startled laugh at the admission. “Doesn’t listen to a single word he says.”

 

“Because he’s lying about the homicidal maniac?”

 

“Sadly he’s being a hundred percent candid right now, which is just another reason—” Marcus starts.

 

“Please be reassured Miss Miller, I didn’t know at first who she really was, mind you. It wasn’t until she appeared after faking her own murder that I became privy to the fact she was a criminal mastermind,” Sherlock recounts as Cassie listens with huge eyes, moving from mildly annoyed to amused at Sherlock’s antics and stories. “She has been under federal custody for some time now, but as Marcus can relay she doesn’t like to stay put.”

 

“What happened?” Cassie asks him.

 

Marcus sighs, and gives up. “I am not sure if he is alluding to her jailbreak or when she ordered a murder from her containment”

 

“Both. And much more,” Sherlock tells Cassie ominously.

 

“Marcus, you never told me your life got this interesting—I always just pictured you sitting at your desk typing reports for hours on end.”

 

“My life has always been interesting. I solve crimes for a living,” he argues back. “Now it’s just gotten needlessly dangerous. Did I tell you he got me shot?”

 

Cassie looks at Sherlock with reproach.

 

“It was the regrettable yet unforeseen consequence to motivated actions.” Her stare is unwavering even after Sherlock defense. “I told him I was sorry—and he is all recovered now.”

 

“As if that makes it totally okay. You can’t sweep a gunshot under the rug like that!”

 

“Okay, guys, you may want to chill a little—we are in a restaurant, not the best place to have a row.”

 

“We are not having a row,” Marcus enunciates perhaps too pointedly.

 

“Hey! If the shoe fits,” Cassie says, with faked innocence.

 

Somehow, the conversation flows from this point on and Sherlock thankfully drops the hints regarding the rekindling of their high school romance which helps reduce the amount of awkwardness that seeps into the conversation. Cassie seems to take on Sherlock’s tendencies for analogies, extended metaphors and pedantic language with a stride, and does not glance once at Sherlock’s jerky movements that seem to stress out by proximity most people he meets.

 

In between ordering their food, and eating it, Sherlock regales them with the story of how Joan disarmed and incapacitated a suspect who attempted to assault her on her way to the Brownstone with only the help of her umbrella and a thermos of tea. Cassie shares the story of how one of her cousin scammed other members of her family, and how the whole affair came to light with a federal investigation. Marcus relates his last visit to the Oh-Vasquez family, and how Lilly fell asleep on him—not the most exciting story, he has to admit, but it gets Cassie to start discussing her nephew and to show pictures of him she has on her phone—and which makes Sherlock start recounting a particularly gruesome case he worked in London with a serial kidnapper who targeted the young infants of aristocratic families. Then, perhaps a bit too much, Sherlock and Marcus alternate back and forth describing cases they worked on together—with Sherlock embellishing or going over important details, and Marcus not willing to let him get away with it. Cassie at times looks at them with laughter in her eyes, clearly entertained by their back-and-forth, and at other times asks pointedly the questions she is starting to understand will rile up Sherlock into another of his speeches. Marcus thinks he should not be surprised: she’s always loved to play with fire, so why would it be different in this case?

 

When dessert arrives on the table, Marcus feels at peace with their decision to share the meal with Sherlock. Cassie whips out her phone, and takes a picture. Marcus is looking at her positioning the frame when Sherlock scoffs on his left.

 

“I did not take you for one of those vapid social media types who cannot eat a meal without advertising it to the whole world.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

Marcus begins composing apologies in his head when Sherlock starts his usual tirade about social media punctuated with unnecessary inflexions and over-enunciation of the evils of tweeter and snapchat. Cassie’s offended expression turns into a disbelieving frown as Sherlock goes on.

 

When—praise the lord—Sherlock finally stops talking, silence falls over the table. Marcus is about open his mouth to make some inane comment about the food on the table—he’s gone to enough Thanksgiving dinners in his life not to know situations should be diffused by discussing the turkey or how good the peas are—when Cassie decides to reply.

 

“That’s one of the dumbest thing I have ever heard,” Cassie replies, slowly and with meaning. Marcus had never thought he’d see the day someone would tell something like that to boy-genius Holmes. Judging from the frown on Sherlock’s face, it’s not the comment he thought his monologue would elicit.

 

“You are not comprehending my point. What I meant was—“

 

“I understood you perfectly the first time, no need to patronize me,” Cassie replies, a little fierce. “You’re some sort of PI, aren’t you?”

 

“Detective,” Sherlock corrects with feeling.

 

“And you think social media is dumb? If I were a detective I’d be thanking the Lord for social media.” She pauses, probably thinking that this alone was enough to make her point. But Sherlock is only looking at her with that expression he often has, the one where his eyebrows raise and his forehead seems to fold impossibly unto itself. “There is so much potential for people leaving clues, for people to incriminate themselves, to find out flimsy alibis were wrong. We were able to figure out some bastard was cheating on my friend by looking through his Instagram account and my friends and I are no detectives. I mean, some people even leave their location on all the time, so you can tell where they were when they sent messages. That’s an easy way to figure out a suspect’s movements. And I mean, what about friends list? You can find links between people so easily, connect them together. Why do you think the NSA, the FBI and the CIA are spying on what the lot of us do on the internet? It’s a goldmine of information, that’s what it is. I don’t agree with all of that Panopticon bullshit, but you guys are detectives. I would appreciate the hell out of the fact people prefer to overshare publicly in this day and age,” she says the last thing with a pointed expression at Sherlock and takes a sip of her wine.

 

Marcus is a little bit star-struck, if he’s honest. He’s a pretty direct, no-non-sense person. But Cassie has always been a step above him, fearlessly fierce and brutally straight about her opinions—to the point that Marcus noticed how it tends to mellow him out, almost turns him more patient and apologetic. It’s perhaps just a question of cosmic balance, like the universe cannot handle that much attitude in one relationship.

 

But Cassie is not finished. As an afterthought, she adds, “And no need to be a jerk over people wanting to share and keep memories of their everyday lives. I am eating a nice dessert, in—mostly—nice company, and I want to remember it and share with people the fact that I am doing something enjoyable. If it makes you feel better about yourself to think me vapid for it, go ahead; but at least have the decency to keep your thoughts for yourself, okay? You might want to take your own advice about not sharing everything with the world.”

 

With that, Cassie attacks her dessert and Marcus follows her, if a little more hesitantly. He tries not to glimpse at Sherlock, waiting for the man to reply back to Cassie’s accusations, but as seconds pass and stretch into a minute, he simply joins them in eating the dessert.

 

“The passion fruit glaze is to die for,” Marcus finally says, going back to his original strategy of commenting on the food.

 

“I was unaware of your penchant for _passiflora edulis_ ,” Sherlock comments.

 

“When are you going to stop with your Latin?”

  
Sherlock gives him a tiny grin, and goes back to his own dessert.

 

Perhaps Cassie knows not to expect an apology from Sherlock, and Marcus knows she won’t apologize for saying her mind, but at least she is not the type to stay mad after she’s been able to tell the other person why she thinks them wrong.

 

That being said, Marcus is glad when dessert is over and Sherlock looks at his phone and informs them Joan has messaged him and he needs to head back to the Brownstone regarding a case they might take on.

 

Cassie and Marcus stay a little longer, nursing a last glass of wine, discussing stories of the past and catching up on some fine points of their daily lives that did not seem to flow naturally in the conversation while Sherlock had been there for the simple reason that, in the past they shared, in the intimacy they shared, he was the intruder.

 

Later when they step out of the restaurant on the comfortable side of tipsy, they stand for a few seconds on the sidewalk to appreciate the welcome touch of cool, evening air after the warmer temperatures inside of the restaurant.

 

Cassie turns toward him, a bright smile on her face.

 

“I am glad that we could meet up like this.”

 

“I’m happy to see you too,” he admits easily. “But I can’t say the circumstances were the greatest.”

 

“My flight is already booked, but I’ll try to figure out something so that we can have some one-on-one time before I have to go back,” she says, her smile taking a knowing tilt. “But tonight was fun. Unexpected, a little weird, but fun.”

 

“I’m sorry about Holmes. I don’t know if I should apologize for the fact he crashed our dinner, or for his attitude. I know he can be a little bit much, especially at first.”

 

“You used to have weirder friends in high school,” Cassie tells him slyly.

 

“I am a changed man,” he replies as a joke while being secretly earnest about it.

 

“Of course you are. I am a changed woman too.”

 

“Yeah you don’t wear your hair in those microbraids like that popstar you loved did.”

 

Cassie lets out something almost sounding like a groan at this. “We should just forget the early 2000s ever happened.”

 

“I wish I could erase from my memory the fact that I used to walk around with my pants almost to my knees.”

 

She laughs at the memory, and gently shakes her head. “I am glad things have changed.” Then, in a more sober tone, she adds, “Even if I miss those times, I am glad we changed too.”

 

Marcus knows he’s changed, that his life and the person he is are nowhere near what they were when he was sixteen. It’s not just that he has learned to wash his t-shirts after wearing them, or that he has figured out what he wanted to do with his life. The years have changed him. The job has changed him. The people he’s met have changed him. He can barely remember how the reckless teen he was used to think or used to want. He has not entirely changed either. There are things he’s kept with him: his strong sense of justice that made him stand up to bullies on the courtyard and eat punches; his devotion to his family and his friends; his tendency to be suspicious of people’s intentions and façades. But it’s true: not only has the world around them changed, but they too have changed, drifted apart and through life in different lanes, following different journeys.

 

“It’s okay, you know,” Cassie says, in that tone people use when they mean for you to understand their words have a double-meaning. “To change. To want different things.”

 

“I know that,” he huffs, thinking that Cassie hasn’t lost her tendency to preach to others.

 

“We’re still going to love you if you want things you did not used to in the past,” she reaffirms. She’s thinking of their high school clique, the friends who will always be a part of their lives despite the fact they can go sometimes months without talking with one another. “If you have someone in your life, we’ll all be happy for you.”

 

Marcus frowns at her words, knowing they have a double-meaning but failing to really grasp where she is attempt to lead him. He does not have anyone in his life. Despite Sherlock’s insinuations, they haven’t broached the question of the possibility of them being a couple again—and the way she phrased it doesn’t hint to that anyway. He hasn’t mentioned anyone during dinner to give her the impression that he has anyone in his life, he’s only talked about his mother, brother, and New York City’s finest criminals and finest consulting detectives.

 

Then the penny drops.

 

“Wait a second. Are you trying to imply—are you—do you really think that—?”

 

Cassie’s expression turns questioning at his sudden outburst. “You’ll have to speak in full sentences.”

 

Cassie knows Joan is dating Mary. She can only mean one person.

 

“Me and Sherlock? What on earth made you think of that?”

 

His face must look slightly deranged because Cassie turns sheepish on a dime. “I’m sorry I assumed. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

 

“Me and Sherlock?!”

 

Cassie seems content to wait for him to blow over his disgruntlement. “What gave you the idea that I would—that I would be interested in dating Sherlock Holmes.” She perhaps too pointedly replies nothing to the question. “What made you think we were a thing?”

 

“Look, I get it. I thought it looked like he cared for you and that he took an interest in your dating life more than most coworkers would.”

 

“Sherlock, care for me? I am just a convenient chess piece, someone he needs to continue being a consulting detective with the NYPD. You don’t know him. He came here just to irritate me—he gets a rise out of annoying people.”

 

“Obviously you know him better than I do,” she admits. “But I think you’re mistaken. He clearly cared enough to come here to gauge me as a potential “love interest”.”

 

“That’s just the kind of impossible thing he does.”

 

“For everyone?”

 

“Obviously not, but—“

 

“Look, Marcus. I’m sorry. I had no rights to go there and poke at your hypothetical relationships.”

 

“I am not _mad_ at you. It’s just the…” he hesitates, unsure what word can fully describe how he feels at the accusation, “ludicrousness of the whole thing that’s throwing me off. I just can’t believe you thought that Sherlock and me…” He doesn’t finish that thought.

 

“Is it really such an outlandish possibility? Look, you’re telling me I’m wrong and there’s nothing between you guys. And that’s fine. But clearly, you care for one another, one way or another. And you have history together. I haven’t seen you as open and honest around someone since high school.”

 

“I am open and honest because Sherlock does not understand normal human interactions and loves to deduce everything out of people in any case,”

 

“Well, for whatever reason it is, it works well—as coworkers, as friends, whatever. Look, let’s just forget I mentioned it, okay?”

 

She raises a hand to her forehead, almost like there is a headache forming there. He would feel bad about it, but he knows she gets it from drinking red wine. There are so many things he knows about her, and that she knows about him, and—and the wine is making everything soft and wistful.

 

“So you haven’t been thinking of me—of us.”

 

It’s no longer a question; he knows she hasn’t. At least, not seriously. Not realistically. Perhaps he wasn’t either, but it was a nice idea all the same.

 

“Oh Marcus.”

 

Just as soon as the words are out in the open, unguarded and plain, he wants to take them back. He wants to put his thoughts and his hopes and his frustrations where they belong, deep deep buried inside.

 

“Just forget I mentioned it. Sherlock was right: seeing Joan with Mary has made me jealous of what they have.”

 

Her hand is on his elbow, almost like she is pleading him not to retreat back.

 

“You know how much I love you, how much I’ve loved you. But you very well it would not work between us, not like that anymore. Things are too different now—we’re too different now. We can’t give each other what we did, in the past.”

 

It’s easy for him to dip his head on her shoulder, to let the wine make him more open than he would normally. But he doesn’t know what to say to that, what to reply. He knows she’s right, but he wishes she wasn’t.

 

“Sometimes,” she starts in a confessional tone. Her eyes stay fixed ahead of her. “Sometimes I wonder what it’d have been like, if we’d stuck together after high school, properly, not acting like the young idiots we were. I wonder what would have happened, if we had tried to make a life together, for real. It’s not regrets, but it’s—sometimes I feel like there is this ghost life, happening in a parallel universe, where we stayed together, those annoying high school sweethearts who get married and tell the world they have never loved anyone else. But then, would you have ended up enrolling in the police academy? Would I have been able to get the position I have now? Would we have made each other happy, you think?”

 

“I think we would have.”

 

“I am glad you think so.”

 

Her hand slides down his elbow to take his hand in hers. “I want us to be friends and I want to keep for you this tenderness I’ll never have for anyone else. It’s hard to explain, but I hope you understand what I’m trying to say.”

 

“I understand.”

 

“You always have.”

 

“Some things don’t change.”

 

“Yes, you’re still as handsome as you were back in the days,” she says with a jocking tone.

 

“You’re not too bad yourself.”

 

Silence falls between them, as far as silence can exist in the streets of New York. It’s grounding, he finds, all the lights and sounds, after this kind of brutally honest emotional talk. It’s like suddenly they can remember that the world exists around them, and keeps going no matter what.

 

“I think I’ll catch a taxi back to the hotel.”

 

“Let me take you,” he tells her. “I’ve got my car parked somewhere.”

 

“Don’t trouble yourself, I’ll be fine. But I’ll text you, so that we can see each other one more time before my flight. And hopefully I’ll drink less wine then—I’m starting to get a horrible headache.”

 

They walk to the intersection where it will be easier to catch a cab, and they do not have to wait long until Cassie manages to hail one. Before she steps into the backseat, she turns to kiss him on the cheek, and tells him one last thing.

 

“I do want you to find someone who will make you happy, whoever they are.”

 

He tells her goodnight, and walks back to his car, parked what feels like miles away from the restaurant, leaving time for his wine-addled thoughts to circle back unto themselves, moving from examining Cassie’s insinuations and her honest admission of the life they could have had—one that he has imagined sometimes, along the years.

 

When he finally reaches his car, he feels almost too unsettled to drive carefully—and perhaps he has drunk one glass too many to start driving so soon. He sits down, locks the doors, and waits in the dark—for twenty more minutes, he thinks.

 

He hates to admit it, but it isn’t Cassie’s rebuttal or her confession that got him most unsettled. He’s always known, and shared these feelings for her—he simply tended not to talk about them or revisit them often, preferring to keep these thoughts buried at the back of his mind. No, what is really unsettling is what she said about Sherlock.

  
From someone else, he would discard it as a hilarious joke. But Cassie knows him too well, for her misconception at the nature of their relationship not to mean something. She is of course wrong about Sherlock caring for him—she does not have a barometer for judging Sherlock’s antics. It’s normal that she would mistake his manners for interest. But for her to think him interested in Holmes…

 

In the semi-darkness and solitude of his car, it’s easier to face the fact that she managed to notice something he’s been trying to deny. This _fondness_ he’s been developing for the man, this incomprehensible inability to refuse him, to not be aware of him whenever he is in the room—not anymore because of the restlessness of his limbs, but because of the folds of his eyes, the colour of his grins, the life in his words. And it makes Marcus feels so foolish and out of his depths. This isn’t who he is. That isn’t what he used to want.

 

It’s the wine talking, he reasons. Once he sobers up, and drives home, and goes back to work tomorrow, he will be able to put these ludicrous thoughts out of his mind. He simply wishes, almost like a secret, that he won’t have to work with Sherlock and Joan for a few days.

 

Thankfully for the population of New York City, no gruesome, impossible case of murders or kidnapping has happened so far this week which means Marcus has been working his cases on his own or with another detective at the station. He knows from Joan that they have been hired on a case by a banker, which means Sherlock has been more difficult than usual.

 

As days pass, Marcus grows tenser at the idea of meeting Holmes. In his absence, the spectre of Cassie’s insinuations seems to cast a growing shadow on everything he thinks or feels. He feels tense, and he’s ashamed to admit how much his mind wanders while he should be focusing one hundred percent on his cases.

 

He feels almost scared to hear from Captain Gregson about new cases. He dreads seeing Sherlock, because Marcus knows somehow he’ll be able to deduce things out of him—that he won’t be able to hide the weird muddle of his thoughts from Sherlock.

 

He can imagine Sherlock entering the station, squinting at Marcus and declaring loudly after seeing a glimpse of his face that Detective Bell has had troubles sleeping at night from contemplating the unreal prospect of dating their consulting detective.

 

Marcus figures he will have to face Sherlock sooner than later, especially since a body is found in a park in the middle of the night by a young adult playing Pokemon Go. The witness was apparently on the hunt at three in the morning for a rare level pokemon thing—Officer Xu has to explain to Captain Gregson and Marcus what the game is all about (Marcus remembers Pokemon as a GameBoy Game, not as something that gets people outdoors). The media picks up on the affair after the witness tweets about his experience like a moron, and it winds up creating a buzz of interest—especially since the estimated time of death is only a few hours prior to the discovery of the body.

 

Captain Gregson wants the case closed ASAP and he calls on Joan and Sherlock to come and help them figure this mess out. Sherlock, too content to deal with a murder after mingling with bankers, arrives at the station to re-interview the witness even faster than Marcus thought would be possible. Sherlock takes one look at Marcus, and declares loudly in front of everyone in the station:

 

 “You should take more care of your health, Detective. If you keep on sleeping so ill, you will catch an illness.”

 

Then, he walks swiftly to the interrogation room.  

 

As Joan asks him about how tired he looks, and whether he really has taken a cold, Marcus only prays all the divinities above that, when it comes to human emotions, Sherlock’s usually sharp discernment tends to fail more often than not. At the realization, Marcus feels already more focused on the work at hand, less burdened. He worried for nothing— _this_ was the one thing that would escape Sherlock’s notice, the one thing that would be misattributed to some other cause.

 

Re-interviewing the witness provides very little clues, and Sherlock seems hell-bent on asking questions about the rare pokemon the guy was chasing after as it were to help with the investigation. After realizing they still have no real thread to pursue, they decide to split to cover more grounds. While Joan and  Marcus go canvassing at the park, Sherlock goes through the belongings of the victim. In a text message to Joan, he claims to have a lead to pursue, but never answers to give them more details about the supposed lead. Joan and he leave the park after getting the CCTV footage for the full week.  

 

Later, while Marcus and Joan are sitting with cups of coffee in front of monitors looking at fast-forwarded footage of the few, ill-angled CCTV cameras in the park, Sherlock erupts in the station with the name of a suspect. He explains to Joan that he enlisted the help of one of his expert after he found out that the victim also had Pokemon Go on her phone. Marcus doesn’t really see how that is a clue—Officer Xu said the game was extremely popular. But Sherlock continues and explains he was able to follow the victim’s movements from the location data taken from her playing the game, and from there his expert was able to determine that another player was in the same location as the victim during the time-window of the crime. From the email account their new suspect used to create his Pokemon Go account, they were able to retrace his personal information, Sherlock finishes explaining.  

 

Marcus has to turn a blind eye to the illegality of the means Sherlock used to find the suspect, and knows they will have to apply for a warrant to go through the same journey of data spying in order to have them admissible in court. Thankfully for them, the courts have been pretty open about letting them crack into these types of information, and the cyber-crime specialist tells them companies like the ones who made Pokemon Go usually cooperate without problems and disclose their clients’ information—from location data to the content of linked email accounts. They will be able to get their suspect.

 

Once the process is set through the proper channels, it’s only a question of sitting back and waiting for it to work its course. Sherlock obviously complains about the judiciary system being hell-bent on letting criminals roam free, but begrudgingly accepts Marcus’ request not to go after the suspect just yet in order to not compromise the investigation.

 

While he catches glimpses of Joan and Sherlock talking next to the coffee machine, Marcus realizes that Sherlock pretty much followed Cassie’s advices regarding new technologies.

 

It’s true that people change, Marcus thinks. Even if sometimes it would be simpler if they didn’t.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to make a comment about how I hoped this chapter resonated with you guys regarding those feelings and moments that come with growing older and revisiting your past--but then I realized some of you might still be in high school. Perhaps even most of you? I don't know, how old are people in fandom these days? 
> 
> Would love to hear your thoughts on the chapter!


	7. The Green Smoothie Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marcus is in a mood, and Sherlock thinks he can cure it with a green smoothie (despite insufficient scientific evidence of its benefits).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.... it's been almost 6 months since the last chapter. That wasn't the plan--at all. But then I made terrible life choices that made it difficult to find the energy to write anything. Let's just say that working multiple jobs while being a full-time graduate student is not a smart decision if you like free-time, sleep, or joy in your life. 
> 
> Non beta-ed, barely proof-read, but I hope you can enjoy it all the same!
> 
> Content warning (?!): some very vague descriptions of a gruesome crime

“Okay, who stole my pens?” Marcus asks the room.

 

A few people turn to stare at him and he catches an officer trying to pretend to be too engrossed by the report in his hand to have been able to hear him. Fine. Let his coworkers treat him like they would a crazy person.  

 

“I am sure far more urgent crimes need to be attended to,” someone says behind him. This is the moment Marcus realizes his luck has truly run out. That he has been cursed. That nothing will ever go right for him _ever again_.

 

When he fails to turn around, Sherlock comes and leans against his desk. Sherlock is dressed in a grey suit. It is only because of his foul mood that the sight of a sharp-dressed, smirking Sherlock makes him feel personally victimized. He cranes his neck in the hope of locating Joan and have her remove Sherlock from his desk.

 

“Where’s Joan?” he ends up having to ask. Curtly.

 

“Joan is busy attending to her _nemesis_.”

 

Marcus sighs. “You’re going to have to use normal people words.”

 

“She is currently being interviewed regarding evidence she provided against Detective Gina Cortes’ ironically illegal practice of _lex talionis_.”

 

“She didn’t tell me she had finished collecting all the evidence she needed.” Perhaps Marcus sounds a little bit resentful. His friend decided to go and catch a morally-grey detective who took to assaulting gang members in her own time without telling him—so what? He’s a grown man, he’s not offended about not being included. He’s just not.

 

“You must be aware Joan did not involve you because of your profession, not for any reasons relating to the state of your friendship.”

 

“I’m aware.”

 

Knowing it doesn’t make him less cranky.

 

He doubts at this point that anything would make him feel less cranky.

 

Sherlock studies him for a moment—an unnervingly long one—and exclaims: “I see you have taken ill.”

 

“Don’t get too cocky because your whimsy prediction was right,” Marcus says, without a hint of bitterness in his voice because he’s an adult who _can_ handle a bad day—week—without getting cranky. Or so he tries to remind himself.

 

Sherlock raises an eyebrow at him, seemingly deciding not to comment on his choice of vocabulary.  

 

“Were you on your way to something when you decided to stop and harass me, or are you here just to disturb me?” Marcus asks, hoping it will make Sherlock leave.  

 

A second eyebrow follows the first one in silent judgement. “I came down as per Captain Gregson’s request. He wanted to consult me on a more _personal_ matter. You will forgive my discretion, although I am certain you will soon become acquainted to the matters at hand.”

 

“Well, I wouldn’t want to delay you on your way out. I am sure your… _bees_ are missing your company.”

 

Sherlock smiles a little, seemingly amused by Marcus’ short temper—which is certainly not helping with his current mood.

 

“I am indeed on my way out—but so are you.”

 

Marcus goes to grab a pen to start working on the damned form in front of him, as a clear message that he is _not_ on his way out and has matters to attend to, but he grasps only air, reminded of his present concern. His anger is only tamed by the embarrassment he feels knowing Sherlock saw the whole charade. He puts down his hands on his desk, and turns to Sherlock.

 

“I know it seems to escape your notice but I work even when you guys are not assigned on a case. I know. It’s incredibly shocking.”

 

“You misunderstand me. I mean to take you out.”

 

Marcus blames the fact that he has taken double the recommended dose of cold medicine for the way his heart skips a beat at the words.  

 

“Take me out,” he repeats, dumbly, reaching for his water bottle in his moment of confusion, thinking that it might act as a good prop to hide the first—obviously _wrong_ , it’s got to be wrong, Sherlock would _never_ mean it that way—interpretation he’s made of Sherlock’s words.

 

Sherlock arches an eyebrow at him. “Yes. Captain Gregson gave his blessing.”

 

Marcus chokes on his water. “What.”

 

“I am to escort you out of the precinct to a more conductive setting to provide you with a forum to discuss your feelings. It seems you have been putting your colleagues on edge and that your removal will increase their productivity.”

 

“I don’t need to talk about _my feelings_.”

 

“Perhaps at least you will admit you require rest. A more calming setting to help you recuperate.”

 

“And how’s that related to talking about my feelings?”

 

“The feelings are inconsequential to this portion, but a green smoothie should help.”

 

Marcus somehow never thought he would hear Sherlock Holmes utter the word smoothie, much less after the adjective green.

 

“ _What_.”

 

“Bogus scientific claims want us to believe Vitamin C is good for curing the common cold. However inefficient, the placebo effect of consuming food perceived to be rich in such nutrients could help your recuperation process.”

 

Marcus refrains from pointing out that Sherlock ruined all possibilities of the placebo effect working by telling him about it.

 

“Okay. Let me go back to the beginning of this conversation. You want to take me out. For green smoothies. To talk about my feelings. With Captain Gregson’s blessings.”

 

“Yes. He’s apparently been one of the many to suffer from your temper today.”

 

“And why are you—of all people—doing this?”

 

“Joan frequently reminds me that I must become more attuned to people’s emotions. Perhaps more importantly, as I am _not_ technically an employee of this precinct, I can be exposed to your abuse without any risks of having the situation reported to HR.”

 

“So to summarize you are Captain Gregson’s sacrificial lamb?”

 

“Something of the sort.”

 

Marcus can feel a pressure headache building over the medically-numbed ache emanating from his blocked sinuses. He could use some time out from his case and the stuffy air of the station, he reasons. He could use a full week in bed, burrowed under his blankets and protected from the awfulness of the world.

 

“What the hell. Let’s go.”

 

Sherlock grins and heads out first, Marcus trailing behind after making sure to shut the session on his computer.

 

Outside, the sun is unforgiving, and the heat is intense, only reminding Marcus of how terrible it is that he is sick at this time of the year on top of everything else.

 

Sherlock seems to have a destination in mind, and Marcus simply follows him. They walk a couple of blocks east of the station before they arrive to a tiny shop, painted all in white, with black chalkboards signs and succulent plants on every surface—a place that definitely stinks of health-obsessive hipsters (it’s not that Marcus doesn’t think it’s great that people are invested in their health, he just wonders why they need to make that journey Instagram-worthy, or so incredibly expensive).  

 

Sherlock tells him he will order for them, so Marcus sits at one of the high, small table with uncomfortable bar stools—he figures it must be the newest trend to be uncomfortably perched above the ground while drinking smoothies.

 

While he waits, he checks his phone and realizes he missed a call from the contractor he wants to hire to re-do the ceiling before mold sets in. He tries to call her back, but he gets only her voicemail. He checks his personal email, only to see he hasn’t heard back from his insurance about covering the repairs for his car. Marcus can’t contain the frustrated sigh that escapes his lips. He’s just so fucking tired of it all.

 

Sherlock comes back with a frankly enormous cup of green smoothie, and a coffee for himself (probably fair-trade and organic, Marcus muses).

 

He takes a sip of the smoothie, bitter but also acidic, and thinks that perhaps he needed something like this—something comforting not because it is overly decadent or sweet, but because you feel healthier simply by virtue of your drinking it. Maybe Sherlock wasn’t so far off with his comment about the placebo effect.

 

Silence stretches up between them. Sherlock sips at his coffee, eyes squinted from the sunlight streaming inside the coffee store. Marcus starts playing with the edges of a napkin (undoubtedly made from one-hundred percent recycled materials).

 

“So, hit me up. I’m curious how the great Sherlock Holmes will talk about _feelings_.”

 

“I was thinking I would just stand as an empty receptacle for you to work through your own emotions.”

 

“In other words, I talk, you listen.”

 

“Yes, as if I were merely a skull on a fireplace.”

 

“That… I’ve just got no frame of reference for that. Let me tell you. Normal people, they don’t talk to skulls—wait, let me rephrase that. They don’t even have _skulls_ just lying around for them to engage in unidirectional conversations with.”

 

“Perhaps they should. Then, they might not scare away their colleagues by letting out their anger at the first inconvenience.”

 

Marcus doesn’t have a comeback that is either mature enough or which does not imply that he would benefit from doing things like—good lord—yoga or meditation. He knows he went overboard, that he’s let his temper get the best of him. He’s always had this tendency to bottle up everything, until something inconsequential makes him let off steam at the worst moment.

 

“I’ve just had a crap week. Lots of pent-up frustrations to work through. That’s all.”

 

“Is it?”

 

“Yeah. That’s all,” he enunciates, unsure why Sherlock doesn’t get it. “I’m sick when it’s 25 degrees outside. My apartment has water damage because of my neighbors—do you know how annoying that is? They’ll have to open the ceiling and fix everything and _I can’t seem to be able to reach the fucking contractor to set up a date_. But that wasn’t enough! No! Because some _asshole_ dented my car and fled the scene. And the CCTV across the street couldn’t get me the plate number so all I know is that someone with a red Honda Civic scratched my car— _not_ very helpful. And then I get to work and I can’t even close the most fucking exhausting case I’ve worked in a long time because someone took my pens and I’ve still got one form left to fill.”

 

He’s run out of things to say—not because he hasn’t been faced with other frustrations, but because he recognizes that it feels dramatic at this point to add more. He takes a sip of the smoothie to try to calm himself down. Across the table, Sherlock only stares at him in silence.

 

“I’m sorry I’m not being all sunshine and rainbow, but—hey, I’ve got a right to be in a bad mood when life is being a fucking asshole,” he interjects again, his embarrassment at his own outburst making his words even curter.

 

“Are you certain you are not using these everyday annoyances to hide the real source of the shortness of your temper?”

 

At first, Marcus wants to snarl that he’s capable of figuring out what is annoying him, thank you very much. That he’s never needed a consulting detective to deduct them. But then, he feels his blood freeze in his veins when he flirts with the possibilities of what Sherlock’s comment really means: Sherlock has finally realized the one thing he was not supposed to realize. He’s recognized the nervous energy that hasn’t left Marcus ever since he’s had to consider the terrible, bad, no-good decision his heart has decided to make. He’s noticed that Marcus has been hiding under his other problems in order to have no opportunity to address the giant elephant in the room.  

 

Sherlock look at his ashen face and, in an awkward gesture, claps Marcus’ shoulder over the ridiculously small table.

 

“There is no shame in being burdened by the things you witness in this line of work.”

 

Sherlock surprises him again, by being both clueless and incredibly perceptive. Marcus has to give it to him: even when he is wrong, he is right.

 

Perhaps it wasn’t really the feelings he’s started to recognize for Sherlock that had him so edge. Perhaps it had been easier to think of the elephant in the room than to acknowledge the shadow suspended over him, the thoughts that have made finding sleep almost impossible lately, and the nightmares that have disrupted whatever little he managed to get of it. And it feels worst, if it were possible, to have Sherlock point it out to him. To have Sherlock be aware of it. In spite of Sherlock’s words, he feels a form of—shame, yes, that could be the word—to describe how he feels about being discovered to be weak. He knows, rationally, that being shaken up by what he sees on the job, by a case is expected, but he cannot help but feel like this something he could just get over if he were just strong enough, more in control of his feelings. He cannot help but think that, even if he feels saddened, or angry, or sick at the sight of the evils of the worlds, he should not let it affect his sleep or his moods.

 

And normally, Marcus endures. He has to remind himself of that. Has to remind himself that working with Major Crimes has him confronted to things hard to bear, harder to bear than most people managed to, and that he bears them again and again. But there always comes a case, one that is too disturbing, that hits too close to home, or that makes him feel too much. And whenever it happens, he never knows how to handle it. What can one do when one is followed by the ghost of a corpse so mutilated, so tortured, that it was hard to even realize it had been a person once? A sight so gutting and eerie that even catching the perpetrator after a seemingly never-ending case had done nothing so far to help erase from his mind the list of abuses further revealed by the autopsy detailing days and weeks of torture. A case so sickening that he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the fact someone did all these things to another person, and that someone had to suffer such horrific abuse.

 

“Do you ever…” Marcus starts but stops himself. He’s grown too familiar with Sherlock, forgetting at times who he’s actually talking too—the Man before the man. Someone who looks at ghastly crime scenes with a mathematical precision.

 

“Do finish your thought.”

 

From his side of the tiny table, Sherlock has opened his eyes against the glare of the sun to look at him. His expression is not open or compassionate, but Marcus can detect no signs of condescension. He assesses Sherlock for a second longer before throwing caution out of the window—baring his weaknesses to be judged.

 

“Do you ever get—” he wants to say haunted, but it sounds incredibly dramatic to his own ears. “Do you ever struggle to move on from a case, from things you saw. I mean, what am I saying—of course not. You’re the super-detective. We’re the weak ones.”

 

“I am aware I myself encourage the notion that my thought process is precise like computations, but I can assure you that I am not unfeeling or incapable of being swayed by the injustices and horrors to which we have to bear witness.”

 

It is so rare to have Sherlock share anything about himself that Marcus says nothing. He waits out to see whether Sherlock will tell him more.

 

“Sometimes I wish I were above these feelings—they can create the most unfortunate distractions. Need I remind you of my erratic behavior during the case involving Irene, before I learned of her true nature? But perhaps I would not do this work if I were unfeeling.”

 

“So you’re going to tell me feelings actually make us strong? Isn’t that a little _cliché_?”

 

“My remark is more an assessment of human behavior. Why do we do things, beyond our simple survival needs? Because these acts, and their consequent effects, have meanings to us—or we give meaning to them. If we were indifferent to the suffering of others, would crimes be considered to be crimes? The French sociologist Émile Durkheim said it is the affront to the collective which makes the crime; more than a century prior, John Locke postulated that it was the violation of God-given, individual rights which made crime repugnant to our nature and made us seek reparation. But can these philosophical musings really capture what one feels while looking at the traces left by violence and divining all the ways in which the victim suffered before their passing?”

 

Sherlock pauses, hands still in motion from the gesticulating that accompanied his points.

 

“I do not do the work that I do because I trust in the laws that have been laid down; I do not do it in order to punish those who offend collective sensibilities; and I do not believe in God. These philosophers, and the musings of their colleagues on criminality do very little to explain why I do the work that I do. Perhaps, ultimately, my views are too simple to be philosophic. But I do not believe in senseless suffering. I cannot abide people taking advantage of others, especially those who prey on those who are less likely to be able to defend themselves. And while I can rarely prevent such acts from happening, I find that my specific set of skills allow me to bring sanctions to these criminals. Not only so that they might face consequences for their hideous acts, or that they be prevented from committing such acts again, but also so that those close to the victims may at least feel that justice was met.”

 

“Then why don’t you say so?” Marcus says, irritated by the realization Sherlock is only ever open, or truthful about himself, his motives or his past whenever Marcus himself is faced with a difficult situation. It is a reminder that, under normal circumstances, Sherlock feels no need to share these things that are so important—to Marcus, at least.

 

“I’d rather let my acts and my decisions speak for me. It seems obvious from my choice of profession what my motives are. If all I cared about were puzzles and riddles, I would have studied physics, or mathematics. I would have been Dr. Frankenstein, or Marie Curie. And while I might be interested in possibilities and unresolved mysteries, these hold little value to me.”

 

“So what you are saying is that you need to feel like your work matters. Makes a difference.”

 

“These grand works can matter and change the world. But I do not feel compelled to resolve them aside from a passing fancy or as a challenge to myself. Because they do not matter to me in the same way solving crimes do. When I realized this, I also realized that it was because I _cared_ , as inane as it sounds. Perhaps in times such as these it might be good for you to also ponder on these questions.”

 

Marcus was so taken by the things he was learning about Sherlock that it takes him a second to work out there is a question he is supposed to wonder at.

 

“Why I decided to go into this line of work, you mean?”

 

Sherlock takes a sip of coffee, probably too cold after the time he’s spent talking.

 

“More in the lines of why it is that solving major crimes is your vocation.”

 

“How can you be so sure?” Marcus does not want to delve in the subject of his self-doubts, but he’s painfully aware they exist.

 

“I know that being a detective is not a mere job for you. I would not be able to work with you if it were the case. I would not be able to respect you.”

 

“So you respect me, then.”

 

Sherlock’s head shakes slightly, and he scoffs.  

 

“I am constantly disarmed by your apparent desire to continue to doubt my esteem for you.”

 

“Perhaps because you rarely afford it, to anyone.”

 

“Yes. But you are just anyone.”

 

“Is that so?”

 

“You are no ordinary man, Detective Bell. This is why I know that you will find a way to overcome these difficult days.”

 

“It’s just—“

  
Sherlock’s eyebrows raise to his forehead as an invitation for him to continue.

 

“I just can’t… the way she looked, when we found her.”

 

“There has rarely been such a senseless and vicious criminal as the one you have helped to put behind bars.”

 

“Yeah, I know. Clearly it wasn’t a bar brawl, a gang shooting, or a classic case of domestic violence. I just wish I could keep my cool like I do with most of my cases.”

 

Sherlock taps the rim of his cup, a semblance of a smile on his lips. “I think it is rather scarier to see detectives become desensitized to the suffering they witness and thus disinvest themselves from their duties. Or, inversely, to see detectives like Gina Cortes become so invested in righting the wrongs committed that they use in a systematic and organized way their training and privileges to unleash violence upon criminals. To these two options, sudden anger at the thief of pens seems rather less hazardous, would you not say?”

 

Marcus does not know how his life ended up that way, but he has to face the fact that he is getting comforted by Sherlock Holmes in a trendy smoothie bar, under the glow of low afternoon sun. It makes it difficult for him to find the words he wants to say, to separate between the things he wants to say and the ones he doesn’t want to. It is also marginally harder for him to process all of the day’s events considering he is sleep-deprived and has a criminal amount of cold medicine coursing through his veins. Yet, there is a peaceful aura to the moment that he cannot ignore, and that he doesn’t want to break. Sherlock himself stays silent, looking at him with a sort of calm. He’d be so easy, Marcus think, to admit to one more thing, to be truthful one more time.

 

Sherlock’s phone vibrates in his pocket and he breaks off eye contact to fish it out and read the message he received.

 

“This is from Joan. She is done with the hearing. I should head back to the Brownstone. And you, detective, should go home and rest. Captain’s orders.”

 

His first reflex is to contradict Sherlock, but he does feel too tired—physically and emotionally, after a talk like that—to disagree with him.

 

“Fine.”

 

Sherlock gets up and give him a smile, pats his shoulder awkwardly again. “If the placebo effect did not work its wonders, Joan keeps assuring me that a good night of sleep can cure almost anything.”

 

When they find themselves back on the street, Sherlock only nods at him before setting off to his left. But he stops in his track, seemingly remembering something, and turns back to stand next to him.

 

“A word of advice, Marcus?” Sherlock tells him. “Give yourself time. And allow others to know your weaknesses. This is something I have learned in my life as a recovering addict.”

 

With these final words, he leaves.

 

Marcus puts on his cap, and starts walking toward the station to get his car. All his problems are not solved by the conversation—the water stains on his ceiling and the scratch on his car, or his congested sinuses are still very much there. Even the things that have kept him from a good night of sleep lately—the phantom of victims, the ghost of human evils—will not suddenly disappear. Hell, even his confusing feelings for Sherlock are getting worse than they used to be. But, as he puts one foot in front of the other, and revisits the conversation he’s just had, he feels lighter, less on the edge. He remembers why he does this work, remember the role he wants to play in the world. And more than anything, this is where he gets the strength to carry on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter, I liked the idea of having Marcus face how he deals personally with his professional life. I decided to play with the fact that Marcus seems to be the type of persons who avoids thinking about their problems, and blames their mood on other stuff happening in their lives instead of dealing with the real issue at hand. 
> 
> I didn't go into details about the crime, or the criminal, but I wanted to evoke those really striking cases where the victims are tortured in so many ways, and for so long, that just reading a recollection of the events is enough to make you feel physically sick. I didn't feel the need to go into specifics, or talk about the investigation itself, because the point for me was to give an example of a big case that would really unsettle Marcus and 'haunt' him after the facts. 
> 
> I have still three more chapters planned for this fic. I do intend to write them (I swear!), but I think this semester will keep me just as busy as the last one. So the next chapter might as well be posted in a month, or in four.

**Author's Note:**

> Would love to hear your thoughts on the fic!


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